When talking about Zootopia’s box office success so far, it’s inevitable that someone will make a comparison to Disney’s last record-breaking smash hit, Frozen. Currently, Zootopia is the 11th highest grossing animated film of all time (we’re finally higher than Shrek The Third, thank goodness!), with $852 Million worldwide as of this weekend. Frozen, meanwhile, sits at the #1 spot with 1.2 Billion grossed. So, it’s understandable why some people would look at the enormous gap between the movies and assume that Zootopia has no hopes of toppling Queen Elsa’s reign.
But ACRaceBest would beg to differ.
My personal view of the matter is that Zootopia may have a major advantage over Frozen, if last week’s poll is a good representative sample. Around 78{fc17e15ed6c8f701884a899a735d4ed94fc8cfa66fc2f404dd33f42f9afeb7a1} of people who answered had seen it multiple times. Repeat viewers is a huge advantage- the same advantage that Star Wars: The Force Awakens had that made it Disney’s Highest Grossing Film of All Time. I don’t have any facts about Frozen’s percentage of re-watches in theaters, though, so at this point I can’t directly compare the two.
Also, I can’t resist, I have to include this image.
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Not sorry.
I recall some people said back in the day that Disney took measures to prolong Frozen's run once the billion mark became a real possibility. Is it true? And can the same happen to Zootopia? Only time will tell. We've also got Japanese market run around the corner; Frozen was a smash hit there, but will Japan overcome the rumoured bias against "doubutsu" cartoons as something just for kids? I want to believe.
My personal count is 11 so far. I regret nothing. Frozen held the previous record – it was not only the first movie I went to see more than once, but the first I went to see SIX times. Inside Out repeated that record among other animated movies I put in the same tier (the other three, alas, date back to when I didn't have opportunities to go to the cinema just like that). Of course, these all have this thing in common – say, put Frozen back on big screens NOW, when I have seen it several dozen times by roughest calculations on DVD and in digital form, and I will suggest Disney to shut up and take my ticket money. Had I had a more benevolent work schedule back then and known more about that one multiplex cinema in Minsk that actually keeps such movies available for a good while, it could have counted a dozen times, too. And I won't lie, another motivation in Zootopia's case is the problems with Disney DVDs distribution in Belarus lately (Inside Out took unholy eight months to get here, I almost gave up hope) – I'm concerned about not having guarantees I'll be able to own the movie on demand all that soon. So you could say I'm soaking all the content and emotions it delivers as best I can.
And while we're at it, I haven't been alone in the audience thus far – even on weekdays, while not getting a full house, Zootopia fills its share of seats. New or returning, they stil laugh at the jokes, jump during that one moment in the hospital… some even applaud at the end – a rare occurrence for an animated movie here! And it's been over a month since it premiered.