New Zootopia show is coming to Tree of Life theater at Disney's Animal Kingdom

By WDWMAGIC Staff · Saturday September 9, 2023 10:21am ET · "The Tree of Life"
New Zootopia show is coming to Tree of Life theater at Disney's Animal Kingdom

Gallery / 1 Photo
Zootopia show concept art

Zootopia show concept art

A new show based on "Zootopia" is being created for the Tree of Life theater at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

Zootopia show concept art
Zootopia show concept art

The current concept for the new "Zootopia" experience has guests visiting the different biomes you only glimpse in the film, traveling with Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde, and other characters.

Disney says that Imagineers are currently finalizing the concept, and more details will be coming in the future.

The new show will replace "It's Tough to Be a Bug," although no closures dates have yet been announced.

'It's Tough to be a Bug' theater
'It's Tough to be a Bug' theater

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Clyde BirdbrainAug 03, 2026

I caught the updated show on Saturday and really enjoyed the changes! When I first saw it last year, its fast-paced, chaotic nature felt a little overwhelming. I can see how that would be tough to follow, especially for international guests. Having Mayor Winddancer set the scene makes what follows much easier to understand. Great update.

TouchdownAug 03, 2026

It’s a fantastic show. DLP has great entertainment.

TrainsOfDisneyAug 03, 2026

I saw it twice during my visit to Paris - i may like it better than the broadway show to be honest. But I like festival as well.

𝐌𝖆𝖓 𝖎𝖓 𝐖𝖊𝖇Aug 02, 2026

There are more updates to this than I initially thought. They've made visual and dialogue changes to better foreshadow Bellwether as the baddie including a very obvious "Bellwether must be behind this!" line from Judy. It actually cleans up the plot surprisingly well. It still isn't perfect, of course, but it’s definitely more serviceable than before. The biggest lingering issue is Judy and Nick talking directly to Clawhauser. The only way to fix that would be through additional CGI work, similar to how they added "clumps of wool" to Nick in this update. A potential workaround could be having them talk to mini drone cameras covering the Zoogether Day event that Clawhauser now controls, but that would likely require much more than simple CGI compositing over the existing animation. I am genuinely surprised they put in the effort to address some of the concerns, and I’ll happily give credit where it's due.

Sir_CliffAug 01, 2026

Hopefully this is not hijacking the thread further, but... I actually think Disneyland Paris' Rhythm of the Pridelands is kind of a good model of how you could have created a TLK show for DAK that avoided being so cartoony. It is admittedly completely out of place in a theatre located in Frontierland, but quite impressive a show if you haven't seen it:

Tom MorrowJul 31, 2026

You're not wrong, but as of yet, Disney doesn't really have a track record of opening low quality attractions and adjusting them later (like is standard practice for the video game industry). For right now we can mostly write this off as a one-off bad attraction.

WeNamedTheDogIndianaJul 31, 2026

He's now in 3/4 WDW parks. Can we get them to complete the set?

WorldExplorerJul 31, 2026

"After nearly a year of being open and much guest research, Imagineering has realized people need to be able to hear dialogue and so have fixed the inaudible dialogue in their show!" "Awww, I appreciate their efforts!" Right. Hopefully they have the concept of humans being auditory beings scribbled on a note somewhere to keep it in mind when making the replacement for Muppet Vision. If not, that's fine, they can figure it out later. Screw those people who cared enough to show up to the premiere. Non-sarcastically, no, I give no points for this. If video games have taught us anything it's that "that's okay, you can fix it after launch!" just leads to not caring about the launch. It's not minor polishing happening, you couldn't understand what was going on. It should not have debuted like that, no one should've seen it like that. Make a good ride from the get go. Millions have already seen the inaudible, Warburton-less version. They paid just as much. "Enhanced story features" *Proper audio mixing and new animated segments* What sorcery is this? Have they created a cutesy name for it yet? Surely it deserves it!

Br0ckfordJul 30, 2026

That was my issue when I saw it. I looked at my wife and was like, what the heck just happened?

Tom MorrowJul 30, 2026

I watched a YouTube video and, while I can't pinpoint what was changed other than the new intro, the pacing feels considerably less frantic and you can tell the dialogue is clearer even through a camera recording. Still not a great show, still not a great fit for the park, but it doesn't seem as much like brainrot now and is coherent. Kudos to them for actually listening to feedback, and rather quickly?

HMFJul 30, 2026

I am sure Disney will be laying them off soon.

doctornickJul 30, 2026

I do view it as further evidence that there are people in decision making roles now who care at least somewhat about "show" and are willing to spend money to plus attractions even if doing so doesn't provide a direct financial return.

PurduevianJul 29, 2026

Still not an amazing show... but I'm impressed Disney put some resources into upgrades to the attraction is less than 9 months. I know this isn't comparable to the cost of a brand new attraction... but the did make an investment.

phoenician22Jul 29, 2026

Wow so an indirect acknowledgment that the first version’s TikTok level of attention span approach wasn’t that great
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