🍿 Disney’s Zootopia 2 Crushes It At The Box Office!

In today’s newsletter we discuss Disney’s Zootopia 2 crushing it at the box office worldwide, the Nasdaq wants to extend trading to 23 hours a day, Disney has greenlighted a live action spinoff of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ entitled ‘Gaston’, Taylor Swift has a new docuseries out on Disney+ entitled “The End of an Era” and a concert film called “The Final Show”, Ripple Labs, Circle Internet Financial, BitGo, Paxos, and Fidelity Digital Assets each received conditional bank charters, Sam Altman wants his own rocket company to compete with his arch nemesis Elon Musk, Tesla’s board is getting rich(er) with all those glorious stock options that they approved for both Elon Musk and themselves, SpaceX wants to IPO in 2026, and Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have sold a minority stake in their Wrexham AFC to the private equity firm Apollo Sports Capital valuing the team at $440 million dollars.

Let’s get into it.

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💰 Disney’s Zootopia 2 Crushes It At The Box Office

The theatrical release of Zootopia 2 has proven to be an overwhelming financial success for Walt Disney, exceeding all financial expectations and joining an elite club of box office titans. The animated sequel, directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, officially crossed the $1 billion dollars threshold in worldwide revenue in just 17 days, cementing its status as one of the most successful films of 2025. The entire Zootopia franchise has now raked in a massive $2.155 billion dollars in worldwide box office totals. This achievement is a strong indicator of the franchise’s enduring global appeal, following the enormous financial success of the original Zootopia back in 2016, which itself went on to earn over $1.023 billion dollars worldwide against a reported production budget of $150 million dollars.

Without giving away too much of the plot, the sequel picks up with Judy Hopps, the determined rabbit police officer, and Nick Wilde, the sly fox turned ZPD officer, who are now official partners at the Zootopia Police Department. Their differing personalities and approaches to law enforcement quickly lead to hysterical issues on the job, but these issues threaten their partnership and force them into a mandated "Partners in Crisis" therapy program. The duo stumbles upon a deeper mystery surrounding a newly introduced reptile named Gary De'Snake and the dark history of Zootopia itself. This investigation takes them into previously unseen districts of the city, including the segregated Marsh Market and a historic gala hosted by the influential Lynxley family, whose ancestors shaped the city’s founding. You still with me? In their neverending pursuit of the truth, often against the direct orders of their superiors, they become fugitives of the very job they’ve dedicated their lives to all in order to uncover a massive conspiracy that challenges the foundational myth of Zootopia as a city of perfect inclusion.

One of the biggest factors driving Zootopia 2's insane performance at the worldwide box office is the film’s massive opening run during the busy Thanksgiving holiday period, where Zootopia 2 secured the highest global opening of an animated movie for all time, debuting with $559.5 million dollars worldwide over a five-day period. The North American domestic gross was the second-highest Thanksgiving holiday opening ever, bringing in an estimated $156 million dollars, with $403.5 million dollars coming from the film’s international box office. The reigning champion of the Thanksgiving holiday season remains last year’s debut of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Moana 2 that brought in $225.4 million dollars worldwide over the same five-day period.

The film’s success is also driven by its exceptionally strong reception and staying power in North America, despite the ongoing conversation of Americans' feelings about the K-shaped economy as we enter the 2025 holiday season. The movie reclaimed the number one domestic box office spot in its third weekend of release, which is a strong indication of the word-of-mouth this film has that is helping it to fight off new competition. The domestic total of $258.97 million dollars after three weekends of release shows Zootopia 2 has commercial "legs," even with the bulk of its revenue coming from overseas. The movie’s success has been boosted by its Certified Hot audience score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, which signals a positive viewer sentiment that is sustaining the film’s box office momentum well beyond the Thanksgiving holiday season.

The international markets have been a crucial component of Zootopia 2's rapid rise above the $1 billion dollar milestone. As it stands right now the international gross alone has contributed a staggering $877.7 million dollars, eclipsing the film’s domestic total of $259 million dollars after three weekends of release. The film’s ability to draw huge crowds in diverse markets across the world is one of the reasons it has become the fastest PG-rated film to ever reach the $1 billion dollars mark globally after its Thanksgiving holiday debut.

Zootopia 2's performance in China has been exceptional, providing a tremendous boost to the overall box office numbers by contributing over $502.4 million dollars to date, which makes China the largest single market for Zootopia 2 outside of North America. This Chinese box office haul has not only made Zootopia 2 the highest-grossing imported animated film in the country’s history, but also the second highest-grossing Hollywood film of all time in China, behind only Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame, which is hard to argue with if you think about it. Beyond China, the film has posted impressive numbers from countries like France which brought in $36.4 million dollars, South Korea which brought in $35 million dollars, and Japan which brought in $27.7 million dollars. If you’re starting to get the feeling that Zootopia 2 has a broad appeal across the globe then you’re starting to understand why this movie has soared to become the highest grossing animated film in history.

Revenue from premium larger format screenings, like IMAX, have had a big impact on revenue from the higher ticket prices. Zootopia 2 has generated an estimated $56.6 million dollars from global IMAX screens alone. This huge revenue stream is overwhelmingly international, with $45.7 million dollars of the total coming from overseas territories where IMAX is more developed than in the domestic U.S. market. As you can imagine, China led the way in revenue from IMAX screenings, contributing $34 million dollars. The remaining $10.9 million dollars came from domestic U.S. IMAX receipts. This performance makes Zootopia 2 the second Hollywood animated film ever to surpass $50 million dollars in the IMAX format.

Pop quiz:

Can you guess what the number one animated IMAX movie is worldwide in terms of revenue?

The answer is the movie Ne Zha 2, which earned over $164 million dollars from IMAX screens globally. This made Ne Zha 2 the highest-grossing animated IMAX film ever released in China, and the highest-grossing animated IMAX movie worldwide.

Zootopia 2, which was written and directed by Jared Bush alongside co-director Byron Howard, has been a massive global hit for Disney, having quickly passed the $1 billion dollars threshold and currently standing at just over $1.137 billion dollars in ticket sales worldwide. Its success confirms the franchise's powerhouse status and reinforces the strategy of prioritizing major theatrical releases, exactly as its outstanding domestic and international opening figures had initially suggested. The exceptional financial results achieved by Zootopia 2 prove that when the property is right and the execution is sharp, as it usually is from Disney, moviegoers will continue to turn out in droves to the theater to watch their favorite Disney movies on the big-screen.

Disney doesn’t just have one $1 billion dollar animated hit on their hands. Zootopia 2 is their second animated movie to hit $1 billion dollars in global earnings in 2025, following the success of Lilo & Stitch earlier this year, which has brought in $1.03 billion dollars to date.

Together, the original Zootopia movie as well as the Zootopia+ series, have collectively surpassed 725 million viewing hours worldwide on Disney+, which has reinforced the Zootopia franchise's enduring value across the company's streaming and content divisions. So you just know they’re gonna milk Zootopia for all it’s worth with merchandise, rides at their theme parks, and new sequels. When that revenue starts to drop off, they’ll take a page from Moana and release a live-action version of Zootopia. I can just see the dollar signs now!

Quick Hits

🏦 Business

The Nasdaq stock market has officially petitioned the SEC requesting to extend the exchange’s trading day to 23 hours a day. The proposed plan divides the trading day into two distinct sessions that total 23 hours of operation. The primary day session is the longest stretch and runs for 16 hours, beginning early at 4 a.m. and continuing through the standard New York day until 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Once this session concludes, the Nasdaq will shut down specifically from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Time for a strict one 1 period dedicated to system maintenance, software updates, and the clearing of trades. Following this necessary pause, the overnight session opens at 9 p.m. and operates for 7 hours until 4 a.m. the next morning, allowing investors to trade during market hours in Asia and the early morning in London.

As a daytrader, I have mixed feelings about this news. We already have the 4 a.m. until 8 p.m. New York session. I don’t think more trading hours are the answer, because there isn’t the same volume or liquidity. Essentially there aren’t enough people trading during extended hours to be able to easily enter and exit a trade as it stands. What I would find to be more interesting would be if they had a specific Asian trading session, then a European trading session, followed by the current New York trading session; 3 distinct sessions, with a 1 hour period between the session. Then I think that could attract the volume and liquidity that is currently lacking in extended trading, but what do I know? I’ve only been trading since 1998.

🤺 Entertainment

Because Disney’s ‘Moana 2’ was so successful, bringing in more than $1 billion globally in 2025, they decided to create a live action version of ‘Moana’, which comes out on July 10, 2026. You just know it’s going to crush it at the box office!

Now Disney has greenlighted a live action spinoff of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ entitled ‘Gaston’, which will be more of a "swashbuckling" action-adventure movie that they say will provide a fresh, original origin story for Gaston. I’m a sucker for a good origin story.

Considering that the 2017 live action remake of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ earned over $1.26 billion dollars at the global box office, it’s safe to say Disney will continue to print money by recycling their original IP for years to come.

🫶 Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift has a new docuseries out on Disney+ entitled “The End of an Era” and a concert film called “The Final Show” that began airing on Friday, December 12. Earlier this year Taylor Swift signed a record $100 million dollar deal, with Disney CEO Robert Iger, for the exclusive rights to both these projects, which chronicles the record breaking tour that earned over $2 billion dollars in ticket sales worldwide from 10 million fans who flocked to her “Eras Tour” in 2024.

🪙 Crypto

Ripple Labs, Circle Internet Financial, BitGo, Paxos, and Fidelity Digital Assets each received conditional bank charters last week from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. These federal trust bank charters will allow them to oversee fiduciary and custodial services, which means they can legally hold, manage, and protect assets like stable coin reserves. This is a good first step, but their goal is to eventually receive a full banking license, which will allow them to accept deposits from business and retail customers, make commercial loans, provide checking and savings accounts, and offer mortgages to the general public. With their new federal trust bank charters these companies will be subject to more scrutiny, which is actually what these crypto companies are looking for in order to gain mainstream acceptance that will eventually lead to broader adoption of cryptocurrencies by the public. 

👽 Sam Altman

Sam Altman is so jealous of his former friend and OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk, that he’s been talking to a couple of space startups about either acquiring or investing in them so he can have his own rocket company. How fragile can one man’s ego be that he needs to run out and spend billions of dollars to have their own space startup? Actually, it turns out there’s a handful of billionaires who do own space startups, so strike that question.

🤑 Tesla

Tesla’s board is getting rich(er) with all those glorious stock options that they approved for both Elon Musk and themselves. To date the board has made over $3 billion dollars from the stock options they’ve granted themselves. Tell me again how I can get on the board of a tech startup?!?!

🚀 Space

There's ego, and then there's Elon Musk! Imaging being so successful, and having so many banks falling over themselves to represent SpaceX when their go public in one of the most highly anticipated IPOs in history, that you are now asking those banks to audition in order to represent your company when it IPOs at a valuation of $1.5 TRILLION DOLLARS!

Elon Musk is already the wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of around $510 billion dollars according to the Forbes Billionaire List. When SpaceX IPOs, Elon Musk's 42% stake in the company will add another $630 billion dollars to his net worth, rocketing him up to having a net worth of $1.14 trillion dollars - making Elon Musk the world's 1st Trillionaire!

🏈 Sports

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have sold a minority stake in their Wrexham AFC to the private equity firm Apollo Sports Capital, which values the soccer club at approximately $440 million dollars. Let’s rewind a minute, and remind everyone that Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney originally purchased the team back in November 2020 for roughly $2.5 million dollars. That’s a 17,500% return on investment in only 5 years! The transaction involves the sale of a 10% stake Wrexham AFC, but both Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney will continue to be the controlling shareholders of the club. So I think it’s safe to say both owners could retire from acting and literally just watch their Welsh soccer team play while continuing to make money off their investment for the rest of their lives. Nice job if you can get it!

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The Business Behind The News is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.