Movie Locations

What if animals evolved to human levels of consciousness, intelligence, and civilisation? What if they lived in a world inhabited only by them? What would a city built by animals look like? These were the questions that inspired Walt Disney’s Zootopia, directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore and released in 2016. Recently, I rewatched the film for the first time in a while and became intrigued by its visual design, particularly the city’s distinct districts, so I decided to do some research and write an article about it – the first in a series that will look at various locations in some of my favourite films.

Note: This article only covers the first Zootopia. I have not yet seen the recently released sequel, but I may write a follow-up article after watching it to examine any new locations introduced in that film.

Zootopia takes place in an all-animal parallel-universe planet where humans never existed. As you might expect, creating such a film required a huge amount of research. Even before they began thinking about the story or the characters, the team spoke with zoologists, animal behaviour specialists, and scientists who study animal evolution. They embarked on field trips to the Natural History Museum to examine animal pelts. They visited the Los Angeles and San Diego Zoos and Disney’s Animal Kingdom to study animal behaviour and artificially created animal habitats. They even went on safari in Africa to observe animal behaviour in the wild, and they spoke to a fourth-generation Kenyan named William Carr-Hartley, who gave the team insight into animal characteristics and personalities. All of this research greatly inspired the film’s story and visual development.

Based on what they discovered, the filmmakers decided to limit the scope of the movie they were trying to make to stop it from getting out of hand, so they focused on mammals only. This constraint led to an ‘aha!’ moment that became a central tenet of Zootopia – that mammals are divided into two groups: predators and prey, and prey animals outnumber predators ten-to-one. Do birds, reptiles, and amphibians also live in this world? Yes, according to the filmmakers. ‘We just don’t go to those continents,’ says screenwriter and co-director Jared Bush.

Although Zootopia was designed as a mammal metropolis, there are nonetheless some types of mammals that don’t appear in the movie. The film includes domesticated animals like sheep, but there are no creatures that are unequivocally pets, such as domestic dogs and cats, presumably because humans have never existed in this reality, so the various dog and cat breeds we see today would never have been selectively bred. In addition, the filmmakers didn’t want any particular species to seem obviously more intelligent than any other, so they didn’t include primates, which are very similar to humans. There are also no marine mammals, such as whales, dolphins, and seals, because they were deemed too difficult to accommodate in the urban setting.

Byron Howard and Rich Moore had to create a film where animals that would normally be predators and prey could live together and co-exist peacefully. And in doing that, they had to solve the issue of what the carnivorous creatures would eat. They would still need meat of some description – they couldn’t simply survive by eating plants. ‘In early versions of the film, they ate fish (which weren’t ‘evolved’ and didn’t talk), but it confused the rules of the world,’ says writer Jared Bush. So, in the final version of the film, although it isn’t explicitly stated, they eat mostly protein derived from insects. The most popular fast food restaurant in Zootopia is Bug-Burga. There, you can get a grasshopper shake, cricket chips, or a cicada burger.

The city of Zootopia is a modern metropolis created entirely by animals. It has elements of New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, but because the filmmakers wanted it to feel like a world city rather than just an American one, it also contains hints of Dubai, Moscow, Hong Kong, Brasilia, and Berlin. ‘There’s a richness and variety of architecture,’ says production designer Dave Goetz. ‘We included buildings of all ages and styles, because we found that the more we mixed it up, the more it felt like a real place.’

Since Zootopia is home to mammals of all sizes, from enormous elephants to tiny shrews, scale played an essential role in the design process. Sometimes, multiple versions of the same object were created, such as small entrances within larger doorways or multi-level trains. ‘In order to indicate scale, we kept certain details a consistent size, like buttons, zippers, or stitching on clothing,’ says Cory Loftis, art director of characters. ‘A mouse shirt only has room for one button, but an elephant’s has lots of buttons, and the stitches are doubled up.’ Meanwhile, the former head of design at the Ford Motor Company designed vehicles with fun solutions to the unique problems of this world. For example, a giraffe’s car is very tall. To alleviate the centrifugal force on their necks when changing direction, the upper half of the vehicle rotates and leans into the turn.

Zootopia also has different neighbourhoods to celebrate different climates. For the desert animals, there’s Sahara Square, a vast, arid, upscale region that’s reminiscent of Dubai or Monte Carlo with high-end shops. In the Rainforest District, meanwhile, it’s always wet and humid. In chilly Tundratown, coolant beneath the sidewalks keeps the temperature down for the cold-weather animals that live there. And there’s even a tiny neighbourhood within Downtown Zootopia called Little Rodentia, which is like Greenwich Village but two feet high, where all of the mice and other small rodents live.

‘Zootopia isn’t a naturally occurring environment,’ says Jared Bush. ‘All these animals together built this awesome place, and they had the technology we do.’ Byron Howard elaborates: ‘We tried a natural formation when trying to figure out how the city fits together. But that lost the idea that it’s an artificially created place. In the end, it’s designed almost like a theme park, like Disneyland.’ The city centre is in the middle, as you’d expect, with the different boroughs radiating out from it.

As part of their research, the Zootopia team travelled to cities all over the world – to New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Paris, and Shanghai. This helped inspire the varied architectural look and design of the city of Zootopia, but it also allowed them to study the different districts and boroughs within one city – for example, how Chinatown borders Little Italy in Lower Manhattan, or how the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn intersect.

Diving into the research, production designer Dave Goetz discovered that animals in the wild often gather around a watering hole, an observation reinforced during the group’s safari in Africa. The sight inspired Jared Bush, who says, ‘All the animals hung out together. Natural enemies, predators and prey, were at peace. They weren’t fighting or eating each other. It made us understand that our city shouldn’t be divided along those lines either.’ The natural division of Zootopia’s boroughs shifted from animal-specific to environmental. Imagining that animals would have historically built their city around such a gathering place, art director of environments, Matthias Lechner, placed the watering hole at the centre of the city and began designing the neighbourhoods surrounding it.

The actual layout ultimately came down to climate logic. Goetz and Lechner tried several different approaches that the animals might have taken. Should it be based on precipitation levels? Elevation? Story progression? Nothing seemed quite right until the team landed on the idea of a climate wall. ‘It’s basically a giant barrier filled with enormous heaters that warm the land the heaters point toward. The heaters themselves are powered by the exhaust from the huge air conditioners pointing the other direction to cool that side,’ explains Goetz. ‘So the desert of Sahara Square and frozen land of Tundratown always had to be adjacent, in order to share the climate wall.’

The story of Zootopia follows Judy Hopps, an optimistic and determined rabbit from a rural carrot-farming family who dreams of becoming the first rabbit police officer in Zootopia – a job typically held by large, intimidating mammals. Before moving to the big city, Judy lived with her extensive family in Bunnyburrow, a suburb on the outskirts of Zootopia, full of rolling fields, farmland, and charming houses. Rabbits tend to live here, in more open spaces, because they constantly need room to expand; there is currently a population boom in Bunnyburrow that is showing no sign of slowing down (which is, of course, fitting with the stereotype of rabbits being explosive breeders).

Judy Hopps travels to Zootopia by train, which terminates at the city’s central hub, Downtown Zootopia. She emerges in Savannah Central Plaza, the crossroads of Zootopia, where animals of all types and sizes, and from each of the districts, converge; this is where the daily migrations occur. In the middle of the plaza is a watering hole, and it may be that this was the original watering hole around which the city sprang up.

To add to the feeling of urban chaos, Zootopia’s downtown area has buildings from every era and in every style. ‘When you’re creating a whole metropolis like this, you have to include a sense of history to make it feel rich,’ says Dave Goetz. ‘There are buildings that are twenty, thirty, even one hundred years old. City Hall is ultra-modern. The train station has a classic European feel. The police station is a minimalist structure with an almost soviet look to it.’

Nestled in a park in Downtown Zootopia is Little Rodentia, a tidy gated community that is home to Zootopia’s smallest residents – mice, gerbils, rats, and other rodents. Some buildings have coloured pipe bridges – i.e. hamster tubes – that connect them to other buildings. There is a height requirement to enter the neighbourhood so that residents remain safe from potential stomping incidents. Those who are too tall to enter can still enjoy a glimpse of this quaint community from outside its gates.

Tundratown glistens with snow and ice year-round and remains frigid thanks to its climate-controlling wall. Polar bears, wolves, moose, yaks, reindeer, and other cold-loving animals make this neighbourhood their home. Constructed mainly of snow and ice, Tundratown has giant snow blowers that go off periodically to keep the town from melting. The cars here travel on skis to cope with the icy, low-traction roads. Pedestrians mainly get around on a moving sidewalk made up of floating ice blocks moving down a chilly river. Even the fountain in the plaza spouts snow instead of water.

‘Snow and ice present particular challenges,’ says Dave Goetz. ‘We were inspired to try Russian architecture, but once buildings are covered with snow, even an onion dome just looks like a normal structure.’ Eventually, the team decided to use the snow itself in the district’s construction. Roofs feel like pieces of a glacier that have broken off. Streets look like crevasses in a sheet of snow. But structural foundations, like window frames, are made of wood and set into the snow. There is still some Russian influence here, but it’s more of a decorative touch.

Sahara Square is Zootopia’s desert district, with large expanses of open space, rolling dunes, and rocky cliffs. Unsurprisingly, it is very hot, with temperatures reaching nearly 40°C during the day. Although it is instantly recognisable as a desert environment, Sahara Square is not just barren – it was essential for the filmmakers that they didn’t make it look inhospitable. There’s a shimmering resort oasis designed for leisure and recreation, with a swanky, glitzy vibe. ‘Think Palm Springs meets Dubai,’ says Matthias Lechner.

Upon learning that desert animals are mostly nocturnal due to the daytime heat, the filmmakers began incorporating many nighttime activities into Sahara Square, and that’s where the idea for the huge luxury Palm Hotel originated. Sahara Square was therefore envisioned as a district that really comes alive at night, like the Las Vegas Strip, with casinos, entertainment, and high-end shops. ‘It’s layering the human equivalent on top of an animal habitat,’ says Byron Howard. ‘The buildings are high-end and well-designed. It’s a desirable place to live in Zootopia.’

The Rainforest District is as lush and beautiful as it is intriguing – all deep greens, wet stone, dripping leaves, and shafts of light breaking through a heavy atmosphere. With its constant mist, the air stays warm and wet – just the way those who live there like it. It’s one of the most complex environments in Zootopia, with artificial structures made to look like real vegetation. It’s also the only habitat built on a vertical axis, with a sheer drop from the treetop canopy to the river at the bottom, which adds to the sense of mystery and foreboding.

To make the environment functional for its animal inhabitants, Matthias Lechner designed giant jungle-green ‘steamer trees’. These structures are built around pipes inspired by tree roots. ‘They mechanically suck water from the river and transport it up the tree to sprinklers in the canopy,’ Lechner explains, ‘so there is a constant cloud of steam in the air.’ Roads are a combination of real trees and artificial branches. Homes are made of wood, with leafy roofs to shed rain, and become nicer the higher up one resides; the lower levels are hotter, rainier, and full of things falling from above.

Zootopia is such a visually rich film, with so much background detail and worldbuilding, that I could easily say a lot more, but I’m going to stop before this article gets too long. If you want to find out more about the film, including how its animals and locations were designed, I strongly recommend reading The Art of Zootopia. There’s a wealth of fascinating information in this book, not to mention lots of concept art made by some extremely talented people. I have a large collection of art books centred around movies and TV shows, and The Art of Zootopia is definitely one of my favourites. Seriously, if you like the film, you need that book!