Role Reversal: Walt Disney Imagineering Inspires Walt Disney Animation’s ‘Zootopia 2’.For the first time, and a huge role reversal for Disney Animation, the Parks have inspired the film, instead of the films inspiring the Parks! Zootopia 2 Director and writer Jared Bush announced that Zootopia at Shanghai Disney Baa Baa Barbershop is in the new Zootopia 2 movie coming to theaters on November 26th, 2025.
Jared Bush: “#Zootopia2 fun fact: the Zootopia Land in Shanghai added this hilarious barbershop for sheep that supplies wool for sweaters that we loved and put it into Zootopia 2. This is the first time we’ve used something built by the parks and added it into a film,” Bush shared.
The inclusion of the “Baa Baa” barbershop, which offers a humorous in-universe explanation for the city’s wool supply, will be a scene directly inspired by a Disney Parks element. This will mark the first time a Walt Disney Animation film used an in-park feature. The sheep barbershop is not a ride or an entire land, but a small piece of world-building created by the Walt Disney Imagineers for the park. Baa Baa Barbershop is a set dressing in the Zootopia Land.
You can go back to Disneyland’s opening in 1955 and see that the animated films inspired the majority of the lands, rides, and places. Walt Disney Animation films were all over the Park. Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty Castle, Peter Pan’s Flight, to name a few. It continues to this day with the recent opening of Zootopia in Disney Shanghai, December 20th, 2023.
Walt Disney Studios, on the other hand, has created movies based on Lands, Rides, and things found around the Disney Parks like Pirates of the Caribbean, Tomorrowland, 2003’s Haunted Mansion starring Eddie Murphy, Jungle Cruise, and the forgettable Country Bear movie. But, never has a Walt Disney Imagineering concept and creation been added to a Disney Animation movie.
Yes, there have been jokes about the Parks in Disney Animated films in the past. Like The Lion King’s “It’s a Small World” joke, or the Genie from Aladdin wearing a Goofy hat, and grows a Pinocchio head and nose.
Expanding the Metropolis
Zootopia 2 is already set to expand the animal metropolis in ambitious ways, with new environments that are as creatively imagined as the original Tundratown and Sahara Square.
According to production designer Cory Loftis, the sequel features “a lot of new characters and mostly new environments,” which allowed the team to “imagine whole communities that didn’t exist before.”
Two of the most notable new districts in Zootopia include:
- Marsh Market: A bustling new neighborhood designed for semi-aquatic mammals, including seals, sea lions, and walruses. Inspired by the idea of a “water park,” the district features elaborate aqua-ways, water tubes, and canals that serve as the main transportation system, giving animals the choice to swim or use slides and ramps. This district is key to the film’s plot, hosting an ambitious action sequence as protagonists Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde pursue the mysterious reptile Gary De’Snake.
- Lynxley Manor in Tundratown: This opulent location is the site of the city’s major celebration—the Zootennial gala, which commemorates the 100th anniversary of the revolutionary weather wall climate control system. The manor is the home of the prestigious Lynxley family, whose ancestor invented the technology that allows all the diverse districts of Zootopia to coexist.
The sequel will also revisit the original “Big Six” districts: Sahara Square, Tundratown, The Rainforest District, Bunnyburrow, Savanna Central, and Little Rodentia.
With the creative loop between animation and parks now officially closed—at least for one hilarious sheep barbershop—fans can anticipate seeing a little piece of the theme park brought to animated life when Zootopia 2 hits theaters this November.
