Ever since Disney's Zootopia was first released to theaters, it has had an incredibly dedicated fan base, and because of that there have always been significant rumors on if this movie will ever get a ride in Walt Disney World. While the legitimacy of these rumors hasn't always been a widely agreed upon, it is an idea that does not seem to be going away.
So what is the reality behind these rumors?
Most of the rumors have been about a Zootopia ride have been about an attraction coming to Disney's Animal Kingdom. There have been some other rumors over the years, but most of them seem centered around Disney's Animal Kingdom.
In terms of timeline that does make sense at the moment. Disney tends to add things to their four parks in an order. In practice this means adding something to the Magic Kingdom, then Epcot, then Disney's Hollywood Studios, then Disney's Animal Kingdom, and continuing on a rotation, not necessarily directly in that order, but they tend to not add something to a park immediately after it has had an addition (with the exception of something like Epcot's current redesign or the Disney California Adventure redesign from the early 2010s).
So the first question is, is it Disney's Animal Kingdom's turn? Yes it is, every park has gotten an addition or has one about to open since Disney's Animal Kingdom received a Pandora World of Avatar.
There is also some progress in Disney's Animal Kingdom recently that would seem to suggest a future project. Primeval Whirl was torn down, and Finding Nemo the Musical is getting a revamp.
A lot of the Zootopia rumors have centered around Zootopia replacing all or part of Dinoland USA. A Zootopia land is being built it's just being built in Shanghai Disneyland that is roughly this size, so what this adds a lot of credibility to Disney World potentially getting a Zootopia attraction in the near future. Disney really hasn't added a lot of unique attractions recently.
With the exception of rides that were rethemes of pre-existing attractions or rides created for a very specific location which really would not work in any other Disney Park due to space, pretty much everything Disney has built in the last decade has gotten cloned. This just goes to say Disney is not currently designing and building rides with the intention of only building them once. Everything they do is designed to be mass-produced, or at least as mass-produced as you can get for Disney ride. It's likely that Disney has a plan to eventually build a Aootopia land in another theme park around the world just based on what they've been doing recently.
If you just do the math, the Zootopia land in Shanghai Disneyland as it is being built is almost exactly the right size to fit in within the Chester and Hester section of Dinoland USA. Disney wouldn't even potentially have to sacrifice Dinosaur and Restaurantosaurus, as the land could potentially be built without removing this part of Dinoland.
Also, if this is not where Zootopia is going in Disney's Animal Kingdom, there are plenty of other locations it could go. There are several unused expansion pads near Pandora World of Avatar, as well as behind Kali River Rapids.
But what about the credibility of the Zootopia land rumors?
Honestly there really isn't a lot to them. They never appeared to have a clear source, and most of them did appear to be coming from members of the Zootopia fandom that didn't really have a clear track record with predicting Disney news. That is not everything, and especially in the wake of the pandemic, Disney rumors have become basically non-existent in a lot of places they used to circulate, and there's not even a lot of whispers about future attractions right now. It's really unclear how much Disney is even planning right now.
But this could also mean that projects are slipping under the radar. At this point Zootopia fans will just have to wait and see what happens as this is still a developing situation.
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