Zootopia 2 Features Some Of The Wildest Movie Easter Eggs You'll Ever See

This article contains spoilers for "Zootopia 2." Proceed at your own risk!

The long-awaited return to the House of Mouse's billion-dollar anthropomorphic franchise, "Zootopia 2," is a refreshing reminder of what Disney Animation is capable of, and an all-time great Disney sequel. The story feels a bit more mature this time around, but the pun-filled comedy that audiences loved in the first film is even more prominently on display here. At one point, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) sits at home and aimlessly scrolls through a streaming service like Disney+, and the posters are all clear references to famous works. There's the musical "Ham-ilton," the action thriller "Die Hero: Die Herder," the sci-fi animated series "Futurllama," the charming "Piggity Falls" (as in "Gravy Falls"), an ominous, xenomorphic egg for the film "PLATYPUS," and the action thriller "The Neighsayer 2," starring Zootopia mayor Brian Winddancer (Patrick Warburton), looking like Chuck Norris on the cover of "Invasion U.S.A."

Disney movies also love to sneak in Easter eggs of some of their best movies, like "Zootopia 2" making a quick reference to "Ratatouille" by revealing a lion chef has had a rat controlling him under his chef's hat the whole time. To make it even funnier, the animal that exposes the lion is a raccoon, which makes it a double reference to "Everything Everywhere All at Once," and the Raccacoonie (the film that earned "Zootopia 2" star Ke Huy Quan his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor). Actors who provided their voices for films like "Moana" and "Encanto" have small cameos, as do pun-worthy performances like Michael J. Fox as a fox named Michael J. and Australian conservationist and "Dancing with the Stars" winner Robert Irwin, voicing an Australian koala named Robert Furwin.

There are way too many Easter eggs to count in a film like "Zootopia 2," but there were two completely out-of-left-field references to some not-so-family-friendly horror movies that you won't believe made their way into the animated adventure.

When we last saw Dawn Bellwether (Jenny Slate), the corrupt government official behind the devastating prey-supremacist conspiracy at the heart of "Zootopia," she and her accomplices had been brought to justice, and she was serving hard time for her felonies against furs. In "Zootopia 2," Nick and Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) are running through the Zootopia prison when they think they've found a safe exit, only for a light to turn on in a cell behind them to reveal Bellweather in her prison jumpsuit, kept in a custom-fitted, single-occupant prison cell with bulletproof glass as the front wall instead of the traditional prison bars. It is the exact kind of custom cell built for Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs." (Note: The photo of the scene has not yet been made available, so you'll have to see it in theaters for yourself.)

Make no mistake, this reference is intentional, down to Slate delivering her best Dr. Lecter impression when confronting the people who previously put a stop to her villainous plans. But the homage is even more clever when you think about the parallels between "The Silence of the Lambs" and the first "Zootopia" film, with Judy Hopps serving as a similarly underestimated rookie like Clarice Starling. And then, of course, there's the fact that Bellweather is a sheep. Get it? A sheep ... doing ... silence of the lambs. Yeah, you get it.

No Easter egg made me laugh harder, however, than when it was revealed that there is a frosted hedge maze in Tundratown that looks identical to the labyrinth outside The Overlook Hotel in "The Shining." After Pawbert Lynxley (Andy Samberg) double-crosses Judy and Gary De'Snake (Ke Huy Quan), there's a raucous chase that takes them through Tundratown and right into the maze. Not only does Pawbert crouch in his pursuit, looking like Jack Torrance after the evil of the Overlook fully took him over, hobbling around after his wife and son, but they also cued the actual music from Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" to make sure everyone with good taste knew this was a deliberate reference. (It also tickles me because Wendy tells Jack she's going to "get Danny down to Sidewinder in the Snow Cat" when she's evading her crazed husband, and Pawbert Lynxley is ... A LITERAL SNOW CAT!)

Pixar has already spent years sprinkling in nods to "The Shining" in the "Toy Story" franchise, but seeing such a blatant reference — down to the musical sting — in an animated Disney film in the year 2025 was an absolute delight. The best all-ages films are the ones that provide plenty of moments for the adults watching to laugh at something that completely flies over the heads of younger viewers, and "Zootopia 2" really went above and beyond to provide that. Considering kids who weren't even in middle school when the first film was released are now legally old enough to drink, these references are a great way to keep the audience who have grown with the franchise coming back.

"Zootopia 2" is now in theaters.