Looks like there's going to be a wild celebration now that Walt Disney Studios' animated Zootopia has passed the elite $1 billion worldwide box-office mark.
"We hope there's cake," director Byron Howard told USA TODAY during a joint interview with fellow director Rich Moore days before crossing $1 billion.
Disney is going to need a very big cake for the hit movie about an all-animal metropolis, which made an additional $4.4 million this weekend to push it over the estimated $1 billion mark after 16 weeks overseas and a dominant U.S. run.
Zootopia is the fourth animated film ever to cross the $1 billion mark and the No. 1 animated film of 2016 (No. 2 overall for the year to date behind Captain America: Civil War). Zootopia arrives on Blu-ray and digital HD Tuesday.
Moore adds that reaching the billion mark is "mind-blowing."
"I cannot imagine a billion of anything," says Moore. "A billion is such a big number. When we were making the film, I was thinking that I hope the audience loves this world like we do and it really connects with people. To see it happening like this is really gratifying."
A sequel for Zootopia would seem highly likely, yet another story with bunny police officer Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and fox con-artist Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) hasn't been officially greenlit by the studio.
"But it makes it so much easier to proceed forward when there's this kind of affection for the film," says Howard. "We want to talk about what these characters would do next. (A sequel) feels like a great possibility."
