17 Interesting Facts about the Disney Movie Zootopia

Zootopia opens in theaters on March 4, 2016.

I was invited to an early press day for the movie Zootopia and I have very interesting facts about the development of the movie for you. Although I have not seen the movie (it was still on the works when I met the creators), I can tell from the clips it is going to be another Disney hit.
Here are the interesting facts I learned:

Directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore and Producer Clark Spencer

1. To capture and learn the animal behavior of each animal, the film makers spent 11 days in Kenya and also visited local animal organizations.
2. The main character (Nick Wilde) design is based on Disney's Robin Hood.
3. In Zootopia the animals do not wear shoes, that way they do not appear human.
4. The citizens of Zootopia feature over 400 characters and there are over 800,000 unique residents.
5. Simulation technology was used to make mammals furs, muscles and cloths to make sure they look realistic.
6. The Giraffe has 9.2 million strands of hair
7. The film makers used an application called iGroom. It is brush based animation app that creates different types and textures of fur.
8. The polar bear fur is actually clear.The white color we see is due to the rays of lights reflecting though it.
9. One of the first obstacles when creating the movie was combining human and animal anatomy without making the animals seem and look human.
10. Zootopia is the first Disney movie where animals wear pants.
11. The clothes of the animals needed to represent the environment where they live. So the are rain coats at the rain forest, and animals wear cool clothes at the desert.
12. It was very important that everything was on a scale without cutting images from the frame. They had to consider things such as the size of animals. There are 97 mice standing on each other head to toe to match the scale of the giraffe.
13. Rabbits do a hoping move called the Binky. You will see the bunnies on the movie doing that move.
14. The trees have around 30,000 leaves on them to make them look real.
15. Zootopia has different neighborhoods: Sahara Square, Tundra Town, Little Rodentia and The Burrows.
16. Even the cars are designed after the animals. There are also animal patterns on cities and buildings.
17. Zootopia is made to be real. Not necessarily a realistic place, but a real place you believe you could visit. 

Watch a trailer

How is on Zootopia?

I cannot wait to see in. For sure Disney has another great movie in their hands.