It’s no secret that Walt Disney Studios has been doing a lot of live-action Disney movie remakes as of late. And in recent months there’s been a lot of reports circling around about 2010’s Tangled being next in line, especially since October when Scarlett Johansson was in talks for Mother Gothel. Funnily enough, the House of Mouse’s latest movie, and worldwide box office smash Zootopia 2 has some clever commentary about not only the trend at large, but a live-action Tangled specifically.
Did You Catch The Live-Action Tangled Joke In Zootopia 2?
As you may recall, in the first Zootopia, there’s a character named Duke Weaselton who ends up helping Nick and Judy on their case – but also has a side hustle selling DVDs to Zootopia residents. During a cute moment in the 2016 original, he’s selling punny versions of Disney movies like Pig Hero 6, Wreck-It Rhino, Meowana and Floaten 2. One of the funniest titles was a version of Tangled called Wrangled with a horse playing the role of Rapunzel rather than a human.
In Zootopia 2, Duke is back selling DVDs during a whirlwind scene involving Nick and Judy hot on Gary D’Snake’s trail in the city’s Tube system that’s a literal tube of rushing water. Duke’s got a lot of the same movies, but this time he also has a live-action version of Wrangled with a photo-real horse on the cover rather than an animated one. In the quick moment, he tries to sell them on his collection with this line:
Anything you need I got ‘em. Sequels, prequels, re-quels. Who says the industry’s going down the tube?
It’s a fun callback, a smart line to go with Nick and Judy’s Tube adventures, and it takes a shot at Disney leaning heavily on making a lot of sequels, prequels and remakes these days. It’s a bit of a shocking comment to come out of the movie, but it’s also nice to see that the company doesn’t mind poking at themselves a bit.
It Has Me Smoldering Because Of One Behind-The-Scenes Detail
The real cherry on top for me regarding this Zootopia 2 joke is the filmmaking team it comes from. The movie is co-directed by Byron Howard with Walt Disney Animation Studios’ CCO Jared Bush as the other co-director and writer. And, Howard specifically is also the director of the original Tangled.
This part is all just speculation from my end, but there’s a breadth of Disney movies that have already been made into live-action that Zootopia 2's subject of its joke, but for it to be for Wrangled makes me think Howard wanted to make a point about his thoughts about his work on Tangled potentially being reimagined for live-action.
I haven’t seen any comments from Howard on the live-action Tangled, and he’s not said to be involved in the live-action film. Even though live-action remakes have been making a lot of money, there’s always a lot of debate from fans when new ones come out – such as the recent comments for the live-action Moana, so I wouldn’t blame any Disney animators for being bothered at their ideas being recycled.
Whatever the intentions behind this joke may have been, I found it to be a really clever way to comment on the state of Disney movies by its animation wing.
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