This weekend Walt Disney Animation Studio’s “Zootopia” opened with a bang. In fact, this bang was so loud that “Zootopia” recorded the highest grossing opening for a non-Pixar animated Disney film of all time with over $70 million in the bank. Why so successful? It comes down to a strong marketing campaign, critical acclaim and ultimately, the good will of the Mouse House.

Months ago, the marketing of “Zootopia” started with a simple premise — it was advertised as simply a movie with anthropomorphic animals that live in their own society. When I saw this advertisement, I was initially rather unimpressed. The idea sounded somewhat trite, and I felt like I had seen it already. Ultimately though, this simplicity allowed Disney to do whatever they wanted with “Zootopia.” The concept was easy enough to understand, and while not reinventing the wheel, Disney could really impress with a great story and execution within this rather unoriginal concept.

As marketing continued, though, the materials released let audiences know that “Zootopia” could actually be something special. There would be animals living in civilized society as promised. But the advertising showed how similar a society to ours these animals lived in, such as sloths working at the DMV.

Here, we saw that “Zootopia” might feature animals to attract little kids to the theater. But the satire of the specificities of our society would appeal to adults, regardless of whether they had children or not.

Another important factor in the advertising of “Zootopia” was the highlighting of both a male and a female protagonist. While Disney has had recent, albeit extreme, success with films that would traditionally be enjoyed by female audiences such as “Tangled” and “Frozen,” “Zootopia” was very clearly accessible for both genders. Boys would want to come to see the fox, while girls would want to come and see the rabbit.

This is not to say that “Tangled” and “Frozen” did not have crossover audiences. In fact, the reason “Tangled” and “Frozen” have those titles rather than “Rapunzel” and “The Ice Queen” was so that boys would not feel uncomfortable going into the theater.

In addition to recent successes such as “Wreck-It-Ralph” and “Big Hero 6,” these films have been raking in audiences male and female, adult and child. This recent hot streak has shown that Disney has created a renaissance in animation. They are now consistently producing high-quality, engaging films that appeal to wide audiences.

While Disney’s live-action films emphasize nostalgia, the great thing about Disney Animation is its originality. While the concept of “Zootopia” seems unoriginal, the story itself is genius, groundbreaking and ultimately very new and current. Disney is adding new, exciting characters to their canon of excellence. Audiences flock to the theaters to relive memories of their childhood with Disney live action remakes, but see the animated films to fall in love with new characters and create new memories.

Finally, as the week has progressed, hype for “Zootopia” has grown with its critical acclaim. “Zootopia” logged a 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and an 81 on movie review website Metacritic, indicating “Critical Acclaim.” While many people might not look at these websites frequently, the word of stellar reviews gets out fast and shows audiences that “Zootopia” is a film not to be missed.

Word of mouth has been extremely strong, as the film jumped over 60 percent from Friday to Saturday. This was partially because kids had the whole day free, but also because the word spread quickly.

Beginning with “Tangled,” Disney has once again proven that they can make successful animated fare that is separate from Pixar. Audiences have come to expect quality films, and “Zootopia” only raises the bar. As long as Disney continues to be original, creative and attractive to all audiences, the success will continue.

Erik Benjamin is a sophomore television, radio and film major. His column appears weekly in Pulp. You can email him at ebenjami@syr.edu or follow him @embenjamin14 on Twitter.

Published on March 6, 2016 at 8:08 pm