'Zootopia 2,' China, AI, and the Battle for Originals With the Head of Disney Animation

0:00This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype. Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great impressions, reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. You can target by company, industry, job title, and more. So cut the bull spend.

0:37Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash the town. That's linkedin.com slash the town. Terms and conditions apply. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with FanDuel Predicts. Predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a$25 bonus. Offered by FanDuel Prediction Markets, LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors.

1:17Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at fanduel.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. It is Wednesday, January 14th. Heading into this past year, I think most people would have agreed the highest grossing movie would probably be Avatar 3. I certainly thought that, given the track record. But here we are, and I think we can now officially call it the biggest U.S. movie of 2025 is Zootopia 2. It's coming up on$1.7 billion worldwide. It's actually about to pass Inside Out 2. It's become the biggest U.S. animated movie ever, not adjusted for inflation.

1:52Pretty amazing, and it's due in part to more than$600 million grossed in China. One of the many interesting things about Zootopia is that it's written and co-directed by the guy who also serves as the chief creative officer at Walt Disney Animation Studios. The original Disney feature animation unit goes all the way back to the beginning of the company. Remember, it's operated separately from Pixar, which is in the Bay Area, though it has the same structure. where a filmmaker runs creative and is paired with a business side person. At Disney Animation, Jared Bush has been the top creative for about a year and a half.

2:23In addition to writing and co-directing Zootopia, Zootopia 2, he's got an Oscar for co-directing Encanto, and he wrote Moana and Moana 2 and the upcoming live-action Moana. It's a lot of Moana. Bush was a screenwriter and came to Disney through the TV side by creating an animated show for Disney Channel called Pen Zero Part-Time Hero, and he later pitched Disney CEO Bob Iger on the idea for Dutopia himself. He's now got a pretty challenging job considering there's a real question whether audiences will support original animated films and theaters at the level they need to be successful, plus the whole AI issue and many of the challenges facing Disney.

3:01So I wanted him on the show to discuss that. As Dutopia became so huge in China, the AI questions anime what the next few years will look like for Disney animation. So today is the year's biggest filmmaker, Jared Bush, and how to do that and also run the studio that Walt built. From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is The Town.

3:25We are here with Jared Bush, who, in addition to being the chief creative officer of the Walt Disney Animation Studio, also the writer and co-director of Zootopia 2. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here. So, Utopia 2, about to pass Inside Out 2 to become the highest grossing U.S. animated film of all time. Do you send Pete Docter like a little nasty note, like a little Gary the Snake with his middle finger out or something? You know, I think we have a really good relationship with Pixar. I'm sure you do. I'd say we are rooting for each other, but I'd say it's always really fun.

4:06And the truth is we actually help each other out. I think a lot of people know that. Pete runs Pixar, by the way, if you don't know. Yeah, but like we actually, you know, over the course of making our films, we actually bring our films to Pixar. Pixar brings their films to us to get some fresh opinions on it. Oh, that's it. At what point do you do that? Yeah, usually it's about two thirds of the way through the five year period because you want it to be enough into the process that you know what your story is and who your characters are, but not so far that you can't make adjustments if you hear a great idea, which you always do.

4:36Oh, interesting. So they impact you. So that's not the official brain trust. You hear about the brain trusts at these animation companies. That was a big Pixar thing that they brought to Disney. That's not that. You have your own brain trust. Yes, but I'd say we go up and use their brain trust as they do with us. Yeah, absolutely. Because we have a really unusual system. And to get feedback from people that know where you are in the process, how hard a note is to address, it's critical. Interesting. All right. So I have many questions about both what your sort of day job, I call it, as managing Disney and your other job making these films.

5:13But I want to talk a little bit first about the success in China. Because I have been, like, this has been racking my brain since, frankly, since the first one. Like, why these movies do so well in China. It's past 600 million in China. The first one did huge numbers in China. Like, what is it about this particular title that resonates there? I think lots of filmmakers would like to know. When the first one came out, we were asking ourselves those same questions. And in talking to our teams there and talking to people there, more than anything in the first film, the story of Judy, who is this underdog moving from this rural town to the big city to make a difference, to make a name for herself, really resonated.

5:58Because for many, many people, they grew up in small rural towns. By the way, I grew up in a very small town outside of Washington, D.C. Obviously, I moved to L.A. So I think that journey of going from the small place, leaving your family, wanting to make your family proud, going to this big metropolis. By the way, the city of Shanghai, everyone also thinks looks like the city of Zootopia. Okay, there you go. You know, it felt like, oh, this is made for us. This is telling our story. And so many, many, by the way, they said from a small town to the big city on a train, which is how our first movie opens.

6:29And so I think immediately it felt like that. And there are different tiers of cities in Zootopia, like different types, like, you know, China has the tiered cities and there's different sort of almost like lands of Zootopia that you go to. I could see that. Yeah, but I think that was a big part of it. I'd also say that it was an unabashed comedy. And that's also something that tends to be global. You think so? I thought it was the opposite. That comedy doesn't travel because the Jason Bateman intonations and sarcasm may not play. I know there's a different Jason Bateman there, but like, I thought comedy was less universal?

7:06Visual comedy, slapstick comedy. I think comedic situations. And I'd also say that when we put a movie out, we do 47 different languages when our movies go out and we don't just do direct translations. Actually, if there's a pun here that's funny for an American audience, they do a very different pun there that actually works for those audiences. And so it's not a direct one-to-one translation. So you have a guy in China that suggests alt jokes for the Chinese audience? Exactly. Interesting. And then you animate around that? No, it's already been fully animated. Actually, they have a pretty difficult job because they have to fit those puns into the same lip formations.

7:46And so, I mean, it's like genius, brilliant work. I don't know how they do it. Well, that gets to my second question. The AI models can do that. Where are we with AI and animation? You know, you mentioned this movie had a five-year path to the screen. It seems too long, right? Like in this day and age, when you've got open AI saying they can make a full animated movie in a year, like, where are you in that transition? Well, not a good one, I'd say. You know, I think that we haven't seen it yet. Critters. We're seeing critters later this year. Here's what I'd say is that for me, what I care about the most and something that I think people don't really realize in CG animation, it all begins by hand.

8:28Everything you're seeing, every frame is by hand. That is critical for what we're doing because it is hundreds of people coming together to build something. What I would love tools to help me with are ways for me to create faster, for our teams to create faster. That's great. But where are those tools? Are you using them? No, we're not using them right now. But I'd say that as something as simple as like when I'm writing a script, the formatting spellcheck is sort of computer learning in a way, right? These are tools that allow me to work faster. What I don't want is for AI to tell me what to create.

9:00There's no fun in that. I don't think anyone who's a storyteller wants a computer to do that for them. But I would like help to format things faster so I can get back into the creative process quicker. Okay, so about three years ago, Jeffrey Katzenberg predicted that in three years, so this year, AI would take 90 % of animation artists' jobs. So we're coming up on those three years. Jeffrey obviously knows something about feature animation, especially at your company. is he right? Is he not right at all? Is it somewhere in the middle? Where are we in that transition? I would say he's not right.

9:36There's so many ways to do many different things. The type of movies that we make at Disney Animation, I don't believe holds for that because I think that we're trying to tell stories that stand the test of time. I mean, ultimately we're trying to make stories that are not just great in one year, but someone will want to see in 10 years or 20 years or, you know, films. I grew up on, on Disney animated movies. Uh, those are, some of those movies are 50 years old. There's something very special about that. And I think it is the human element that makes that possible. And then I'd say, you know, I can sort of talk about our collaborative process, which is extremely unique.

10:10It is all of these different individual creative brains coming up with ideas, kind of in the moments, very, you know, it's a lot of improvisation within that collaboration. I don't know how you would do that. So I'd say, certainly, some films could be made like that. Disney animated movies could not. But how I mean, there's a push pull here because everyone thinks that 200 million dollars is too much for an animated film, especially given the challenges in the original animated filmmaking world. If the box office is not coming back for original animation and these movies cost 200 million dollars, if you're not using AI extensively, what gives there?

10:54Like, I'd say I'm very lucky that the first three movies I worked on here were all originals. It was Zootopia, Moana, and Encanto, all three of which originals. That's quite an arsenal there. You just threw three fastballs at me. But I'd say all of those really resonated. I'd say in terms of specific costs, I mean, luckily, I'm on the creative side, not the dollars and cents side. You're on the L, not the P side. Yeah, but it's something that we think about. I'd say something that's unique to Disney Animation is everyone moves from movie to movie. It's not like a movie ends and there's a different crew that then comes in.

11:29We all move from movie to movie. That's one of the really unique things about working here. So we're also trying to attract and keep the best people in the world. And so that's part of what goes into these things. But I think to your point, these movies certainly now, certainly post-COVID, demand to be exceptional, especially in original. They're like, you really have to convince audiences to go to give them a reason to get out of their houses. And then when they go to the theater, they want to get their money's worth. So I think it's also, you know, incumbent on on storytellers to make it worth it.

12:03But how do you do that? I mean, do you think so? You think that there is a path for these originals to come back in theaters? They have there have to be. I believe that if Encanto was released in a normal theatrical environment, I think it would have been a much bigger hit. I mean, we've seen how much the music and the animation resonates on Disney Plus. But, you know, there's the knock that in the Bob Chapek era that these films went direct to streaming. It taught the audience that original animation is for streaming. And then you go to the theater for the nostalgic moment to remember how great the first one was and see the new one.

12:39Yeah, I guess I just don't believe that's true. You don't. Okay. And so, you know, I think in this role now, I mean, of course, there are stories that and characters whose stories you want to continue. That's really important. But you have to have originals to build the next thing that people want to see. Of course. That's critical. And then from a from a storytelling standpoint, you don't want to repeat yourself. It's critical to to push into new territory and surprise people. Only originals can do that. I will say that the bar for originals is very high. And that's something that we spend a lot of time looking at.

13:13Well, that's fascinating. So what is the bar for original? Like, give me some elements that an original has to have in order to push it above that bar for a green light. Well, I think more than anything, it's the combination of a world that people want to spend time in and characters whose journeys you want to go on with them. Like that, that is absolutely critical. And it seems very fundamental. You go, well, of course it's the world and the character. I mean, I would have thought that was the case for Wish. Wish, to me, seemed on paper, no-brainer, fairy tale, like, big ballad, like, but it didn't work.

13:44And I'd say that for me looking at originals, certainly nowadays after COVID, I think people kind of, they want to walk in and be dazzled. And I think they want to see characters that resonate in ways that feel novel. You know, I think Nick and Judy are really good examples of characters who are extremely flawed, very specific. Moana and Maui. It's a great buddy film. The two of them in the first Moana, right? It is looking at these two characters pushing against one another. In Kanto, it's Minabelle, but she has this giant family. It's 12 people in her family. It's also music. Music matters so much to these things.

14:22Music is a critical piece. I mean, obviously, we do a lot of music. Not in Zootopia, but in those fairy tales, it matters so much. It does. Well, and that's also a really difficult thing because, you know, you have to keep delivering new types of music to an audience. If you reach right, that doesn't feel good. If you try to go too far, that doesn't feel good. And so you do have to sort of trust your gut moving through these things. But also in the five years it takes to make one of our films, we have hundreds of people in our building here giving direct, honest feedback about is it working? Is it not working?

14:54And that's a critical step. All right. So what is your day like? Give me the breakdown of someone who is in charge of the creative output of the studio, but also working on your own projects. Sure. I mean, I'd say in this role, it's always at least 50 % of the job is focusing on the next movie up. So that's regardless of what you're doing. And that could be in meetings where you're trying to figure out what the story is. You're looking at character designs. You're setting a bar for the world. You're pushing emotion or you're pushing comedy. And so you're in a number of different rooms. So I'd say 50 % is that.

15:28So right now, 50 % of my job is focused on the next film. By the way, so when I'm directing the next film up, it's the same, it's kind of the same thing. meaning like I'm both directing the movie I'm working on. Zootopia 2 is a good example of this, but also my job is worrying about the next movie up. So it's kind of one of the same. Beyond that, it's really important to me is really looking at the health of this building of Disney animation. I think we do our best work when people are feeling creatively fulfilled. It's a building full of creative folks. And I think that when people feel valued, when they are able to take creative chances, that's really important.

16:05So I'd say the next big chunk of my job is making sure that this is an environment that is a creative environment for people. At what point do you go to the powers that be? To Alan Bergman, to Bob Iger eventually for the green light? You famously pitched the original Zootopia to Bob Iger. And I would like to know about that process. And also, at what point now do you say, okay, we are ready. We think we have a viable Disney animation title. let's go to the green light committee first off i'd say both of those guys are really good friends of mine they're also the biggest supporters and cheerleaders of animation truly sure sure sure yes but they also say no well here's what i'd say and you and they have to say no for a reason and and i think they also are amazing listeners when i first got here so my directing partner byron howard um who he's a veteran one of the nicest uh most welcoming people didn't he bring you to the studio and now you're his boss i i yeah he reminds me every day that he hired me so we're we're good on that front but i'd say when i first got here um he had pitched this notion of it's going to be a world of talking animals and they're going to have technology and wear clothes and when i was first hired that movie was like a almost like a james bond adventure on a on an island in the middle of the ocean somewhere and i was like okay well i like spy movies this is great and I got hired.

17:30Luckily, I was really, really excited to come to Disney Animation. And day one, Byron said, oh yeah, we threw that whole idea in the trash. It's not gonna be a spy movie. It's not gonna be an island. Actually, it's just gonna be the story set in this city of animals. Crime procedural. Yeah, but we didn't even know that part. It was like, what are we doing? We got to start from scratch. And so I would say that we have an enormous amount of creative freedom. There's a lot of faith, I think, that Bob and Alan have in this place. It's not a traditional, and here's the whole movie done and now can we get our green light?

18:01I think we are constantly working on notions and ideas and characters and worlds. And we're saying, we're really excited about this. What do you think? And sometimes they'll say, I love that. Go at speed. That's amazing. Sometimes they'll say, I'm not seeing it yet, but I trust you guys. Let's see it in a few months and see how it's going. And then sometimes they'll say, yeah, that's just really not something that's exciting. and it's way more of a conversation than it is like a scary moment of thumbs up or thumbs down and move forward. I think there's a lot of faith in the creative minds here to if you're passionate about something, there's a reason for it and we always have to earn those things but there's, I think over the course of the process, you're constantly second guessing yourself and you're constantly needing to prove that this is worthy of five years of people's time.

18:56Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? ZepBound Terzepatide may be able to help. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. ZepBound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. ZepBound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if ZepBound is safe and effective for use in children.

19:35Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop ZepBound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills.

20:07Taking ZepBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods Market Peach Apricot Rose Italian Soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack.

20:52That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sales signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. A lot of talk about whether Disney should explore licensing outside IP to make animated movies. You know, Universal's had a ton of success with the Nintendo properties. The video game space seems to be an area ripe for the imaginations of young people. Disney hasn't done that. Why not? Where are you guys on that? Well, I think historically, our stories come from within. Yeah, you like to own. The company wants to own everything, you know, start to finish, and this would be a change.

21:39But that's the way it's like, that's the cynical view that it's the company. Okay, I'm a cynical person. But I agree that there is a creative engine there that should be able to come up with the next franchises. But you know what? When you attach Illumination to Super Mario Brothers, it's$1.5 billion. That's all right. That's true. I'd say that is true. I'd say Zootopia is doing pretty well. It is. And you don't owe half the money to a Japanese corporation. ultimately the reason why creative folks come here and the reason why um you know i'm lucky enough to work with some of the greatest storytellers in the world is because people want to create that that is the number one thing that pulls people is we want to build something and i will tell you that as a screenwriter who wanted to join disney animation before i got this job i was asking the same questions you are which is but i have this great idea why is disney animation, not buying this great idea that I have.

22:36And it was told me, well, everything is sort of built in house. I will say that it's, it really isn't a financial, um, something that we think about, uh, from a financial perspective, it is really, we have brilliant people that want to build something and that's why they're here. So no unlicensing IP in this role. I will never say there's a never meaning like, like for me, like I actually think it's critical. I think we have to be aware of the world in which we live. But I would say based on the stories and the ideas that I've heard about what the next 15 years of our movies could look like, that's not something I'm focused on right now.

23:09What about anime? I have said on this show that Disney should be either buying an anime studio or exploring anime more seriously. You guys do a couple little partnerships, but the box office numbers on anime, they're not something to slouch at. Oh, for sure. I mean, so many of our artists here are really inspired by anime. Obviously, Miyazaki's work is something that I study myself. I think when people hear anime, it means a lot of different things. It's a medium, just the same way that CG animation is a medium. And so I think there's a lot of different ways to tell stories. In my experience, I'd say that a lot of the anime movies that, at least for me, excite me are sweeping.

23:52They're epics. there. You're looking at this amazing, beautiful world building. But is there a place for anime at Disney? It's a very specific pipeline to do that. A lot of the times anime is either 2D artists or a very specific way of doing things. That's not exactly the way that we do things. That said, inspired by anime is something different. And that's something that as we're looking to the next several years of how we tell stories and the visual style of our stories, those things can change quite a lot. And that's something I'm very excited about over the next, even the next five years, there's going to be a really exciting evolution, uh, in the way that our movies look.

24:30Uh, I think people are excited about that. So there is a K-pop demon hunters inside Disney at some point. Oh man. I think throughout history, you see when, when something really succeeds and everyone's like, I want to do that thing that made that person. It's actually, it's not what it is. It is. They did something special and people went, spider versus another great example, right? Yeah. You don't want to like spider verse succeeded because, it was this really amazing art style that was really tied to comics. Well, and people also said Disney would never make that movie that way. I remember when that came out.

25:02This is feeling fresh and resonating because it's so not what Disney would have done with Spider-Man. I would say I respectfully disagree. I'd say, well, people worry that's the case, but I'd say from personal experience, it's not exactly the case. something I found is, specifically because we have this 100-year-old legacy, which is, I mean, no other studio has that. The one thing that we do have to do is make sure that it feels like it belongs in that legacy. And there's a lot of different ways that you can push the boundaries. And that's something that Walt Disney himself always wanted to push boundaries, always wanted to surprise and exceed expectations.