Revisionist History - Zootopia Exposed! (Part One)

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Screenwriter Gary Goldman claims the creators of the Disney franchise Zootopia stole his story. Malcolm investigates.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This spring I'm going to London, my homeland. My parents met at University College London years ago, and every time I go I make a special trip to the campus. I take a picture of the place where they went on one of their first dates and sent it to my mom. London is not just a destination for me. It's a place that opens up a world of memories. That's what finding the perfect place to stay can do.

And by hosting your home on Airbnb while you're traveling, you can provide someone else with that perfect place while your home would otherwise be sitting empty. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. On a recent snowy day, I took my four-and-a-half-year-old to a movie theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side. This was only her second time ever at the movies. She was very excited.

I bought her a large tub of popcorn. The theater was crowded. We were there to see Disney. Disney's Zootopia 2, a film that is now the highest grossing animated movie of all time. We sat in Raptured for the better part of two hours. And at the end, she turned to me and said, Thank you, Daddy. And I said to her, oh, this wasn't for you.

This was for me. I'm on assignment. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revision's History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. The story I'm about to say, tell you is the strangest Hollywood story you have ever heard. It makes no sense. It invites all manner of absurd speculation. It's going to take us two episodes to unravel it, and even then

your mind will be in such a swirl that you will almost certainly feel compelled to seize Utopia 2 for yourself. And if you've already seen it, to grab any one of your available children and see it again, and to whisper under your breath when you think your little companion isn't listening. WTF. All of this started when we got a call from Angus Fletcher, saying a friend of his needed to speak to me. It was urgent. The friend had a story to tell. A story with so many layers, the friend said, that there was no way to do it justice in a single episode, to minimum. For future reference, if you need to get my attention, this is the way to do it. All right, can you hear me? There you are. Gary, Angus, the gang is back together.

Right away, I hopped on a Zoom with two of them. If you want, I mean, I can tell you how the story started. And then Gary, you want to, do you want to, so okay. All right, jump in. If you are a longtime listener of revisionist history, you will know the name Angus Fletcher. He's an English professor at Ohio State and runs their narrative project. I love Angus. I think Angus is a genius.

Angus has been featured on more revisionist history episodes than anyone else, our three-part rewrite of The Little Mermaid, in defense of Paw Patrol, and, and this is relevant to the story I'm about to tell you, we did a series of episodes a few years back called Development Hell, where we interviewed screenwriters about their best idea that never made it to the screen. And Angus came on to talk about an absolutely banana sci-fi project he worked on with a good friend of his, the Hollywood screenwriter, Gary Goldman. And during that episode, I concluded that not only is Angus a genius, but Gary is a genius too.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. So basically, I get a phone call from Gary, and Gary and I are old friends. We've worked together on a bunch of screenwriting projects. Gary is one of the most famous and eminent screenwriters in Hollywood. If you love the end to Total Recall, you can thank Gary for that. Gary Goldman grew up in the South. He was a protege of the novelist Walker Percy, went to Brandeis, spent some time working in a hospital in Israel during the Yom Kippur War,

ended up in Hollywood, and has worked with everyone, Paul Verhoeven, James Cameron, Ridley Scott, David Fincher, Stephen Spielberg. So Gary calls me up, and he goes, Angus, have you seen Disney's latest movie? Here, Angus is referring to the first Zootopia film, which came out in 2016, featuring a rabbit named Judy Hopps and a con artist Fox named Nick Wilde, who lives. in a world inhabited entirely by animals, and to have to work together to solve a mystery involving the disappearance of predators. It's very good.

Zootopia, a gleaming city, where animals of all breeds, predator and prey alike, live together in peace and harmony. Zootopia did very well. It grossed a zillion dollars and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Gary watched all this success closely. And it's a big deal. I mean, it's a big family. I can send you the pictures of us drinking champagne when Zootopia won, won the Academy Award. I mean, this is our lost daughter who is doing great.

Why was this such a big deal for Gary? Here's what he told Angus. And so he tells me the story of how he goes into Disney, how he pitched the mess idea, how he wrote it down on a physical document, which he gave to Disney. And he goes, I think they might have stolen my idea. I said, what's on this document?

and Gary goes to me, okay, well, in my pitch, it says, when you grow up, quote, if you want to be an elephant, you can be an elephant. And in Disney's movie, it says, quote, you want to be an elephant when you grow up, you can be an elephant. And in Gary's pitch, it says, this is going to take place in a land where, quote, an animal can be whatever it wants to be.

And in Disney's movie, it says, this is going to take place in a land where, quote, Anybody can be anything. And then I say to Gary, what is this land? And Gary says to me, in my pitch, it's called Zootopia. And amazingly, in the Disney movie, it's called Zootopia. Wait, okay. So there's so many things to pick up on.

Gary, take me back to the beginning about the origins of this idea of a movie called Zootopia. What period of time were we talking about here? 2000. 2000. Yeah. I have two sons. Yeah. And my sons were, I don't know, four and six.

And, you know, at that time, you start thinking about, oh, what can I do creatively that my kids can relate to? And so I came up under interesting, very specific circumstances with the idea for Zootopia. And I'll tell you, when I came up with the word Zutopia. I was elated and I ran into my house and I ran upstairs and I talked to my wife. I said, you're not going to believe I've got the most incredible title. I've got the most incredible idea. It's called Zootopia. I don't know.

I don't think it's such a great idea. I said, trust me, trust me. It's a really good name. In fact, we can't say this word in front of the kids. Because if we say this word in front of the kids, they're going to go to school. And a lot of their, the parents of these kids are in show business. And then the word is going to get out. And it's very hard to protect a title.

Yeah. So we just have to keep it secrecy. Yeah, we had to keep it secret. Fast forward nine years. Goldman's doing a project with a comic book legend Stan Lee for Disney. And he goes to the Disney exec he's working with. And he says, I have this idea. Gives them an eight-page outline of the concept.

It's called Looney. It's about an animator who creates an animal world called Zootopia. He has drawings of the animals who are going to inhabit the Zootopia world. Roscoe, the hyena, who is cynical and obnoxious. His sidekick Mimi, the squirrel, who is cute and crevacious and optimistic. Goldman thinks that this is the best idea he's ever had for a movie. And Angus agrees. So first of all, I just want to point out that you have the writer of Total Recall,

which is generally considered to be one of the greatest stories of all time, telling you that Total Recall is nothing compared to Zutti. That should give you some indication. Yeah. And, you know, Gary is legitimately a story genius. Why is Zootopia so good? Well, because what you're really trying to do with a story is not just create a plot. You're trying to create a world.

Yeah. That's why Star Wars is so brilliant because the movie, great. But really, what you want is you want to wander around with lightsabers and Darth Vader and the Force and the Jedi and Leah and all that kind of stuff. And Zootopia is exactly the same thing. Zootopia is a myth. universe. When Gary first told me this, he sent me a basically a Bible, which went on for, you know, hundreds and hundreds of slides explaining to me all the sort of like complex

mythography behind Utopia. So I'm not going to pretend to be able to kind of expound that to you hear. It was like having a conversation with like Joseph Campbell or something. But basically, the point is, is that you have an entire universe in which these animals are there to expose the lie that you can be whatever it is that you want to be. I mean, that's basically the twist, is that we are all told these fables in America growing up, which is you can be whatever you want to be. Yeah. Yeah. Gary? Yeah. Well, the idea here is all of us tell our kids pretty much, you have to decide whether or not to tell your kids, you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up. And there's enormous pressure to say it, even though we know as adults, that's not exactly true.

that's really kind of magical thinking, masquerading is good advice. So do you want to send your kids out into the world knowing nothing except you can be whatever you want to be? And then you just go out there and try, try, try, try, try, and then you encounter real life and you're not prepared for it. On the other hand, if you don't teach your kids that, they're going to be totally out-competed by all the other kids in the class who have been told they can be whatever they want to be. So I wanted to basically surround these cliches of conventional wisdom with ridiculous, zany, cautionary tales about animals who are told they can be whatever they want to be and basically encounter the constraints that all of us encounter in life.

The world where all this took place was Zootopia. Gary takes his idea to the executive he's working with at Disney. The executive, according to Goldman, basically says, this is interesting. Should I give it to the folks over to animation? I said, submit it. He said, okay. And I got my papers together

and I put it in the portfolio and I handed it to him. And then I hear from my age as they passed. That's all. They passed. Six years go by and then one day, Gary gets a call from one of his sons.

Both of my sons are in the car together. They said, they say, Dad, we're driving down the freeway and we see a billboard. And you're not going to believe it, but it has your loony characters on it. I said, my loony characters what are you talking about?

Just, yeah, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, there are these, it's a giant billboard and it's got your characters on it. And I said, that's, it said, what's the name of the movie? And he says,

Zutopia. And he'd never heard the word utopia. He called me up to tell me that he'd seen my loony characters. So, I would, you know, I was flabbergasted, obviously.

The Goldman's go and sees Utopia at the Grove in Los Angeles. They can't believe it. As far as Gary can tell, his character Roscoe, the cynical obnoxious hyena, has been turned into Nick Wilde, the cynical obnoxious fox, and his optimistic crevacious squirrel Mimi has become the optimistic crevacious rabbit, Judy Hobbs. Goldman gets one of the biggest and baddest of law firms, Quinn Emanuel, to represent him. Quinn Emmanuel does not usually take suits like this, but for Gary, they make an exception.

That's how compelling his case seems. So Quinn Emmanuel files a lawsuit, claiming copyright infringement. The case goes on for seven years. Everyone who is anyone at Disney's deposed. What's Disney's defense? Is it? They never saw it? Yes, never saw it.

So they're claiming this is a series of incredible coincidences. That's right? Yes, they call it independent courage. Just like I independently created Mickey Mouse the other day. And what happens? Goldman loses. He appeals, loses again. He switches to state court loses.

The courts find that the similarities between Gary's idea and Zootopia didn't look like copyright infringement. And the case is dismissed before the courts ever get to the question of whether Disney actually used Goldman's pitch. So the Goldman's give up the fight. Yeah. Now, there are a million things to say here. The first is that it isn't surprising

that Goldman loses his copyright case against Disney. It's almost impossible under current case law for a writer to win a case like this against a studio. In one analysis, two Los Angeles lawyers looked at over 50 copyright infringement cases writers brought against Hollywood Studios, and in every case, the plaintiff lost. The law basically says,

You have to show that your work was copied word for word. And of course, you can steal someone's idea without copying it word for word. I could go on and on about this, but I won't. Because what matters is what happens next. Then Gary calls me up a few months ago, and he says, Angus, have you seen the sequel to Zutopia? And I said, no, Gary, I have not. What happens in the sequel to Zootopia?

Exactly. That's the question. What happens in the sequel to Zootopia? Everyone has a theory. Why do you think I drag my daughter to see Zootopia too? Because I have a theory. Gary Goldwyn has a theory. The team of movie buffs and literary analysts we put on the case,

have a theory. You will have a theory too once you finish listening. And why does everyone have a theory? Because there is absolutely something weird going on with Zootopia 2 that requires a theory. That's after the break. Last summer I went to the south of France for work right on the beach. It had all the usual French touches, the beautiful architecture, the amazing food,

the waiters who don't give you the time of day, which I just love. But you know what I remember the most? I discovered a barista who made, and this is going to sound like hyperbole, the world's greatest cup of coffee. I just happened to come across him because he had set up shop right by where I was staying. It was pure serendipity. And that's what I've learned over. the years that so much of the delight you get from a vacation depends on where you stay.

Location, amenities, random coffee shops, these things are important. And sometimes something about a place just says yes, this feels right. My home has many of those same yes qualities, the light, the street, the layout. And at some point it occurred to me, while I'm away, my own place is just sitting there and it doesn't have to be. All the reasons my home feels right to me are the same reasons it might feel right to somebody else. Hosting your home can be a simple way to make use of a place that's already there. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com.ca. Forward slash host. At what point do you hear that there's a sequel on the works?

I mean, it takes years and years to make these movies. I mean, they were beginning to make the sequel while we're still involved in the lawsuit. We're back with Angus Fletcher and Gary Goldman, and the sensitive topic of the sequel has finally come up. Oh, it's really interesting, because the main character in the sequel to Zootopia is called Gary the Snake. The sequel's central character is a snake called Gary DeSnake.

And I thought, well, that's, obviously they're just planning to, you know, because you don't make a character a snake unless you're planning to, I mean, according to all... So you're an immediate thought when you heard of this character, Gary the Snake, is that it was... But a attack on it. Yeah, it's a personal attack on me. Now, of course, this could just be a coincidence.

Gary is a common name. There are lots of Gary's in the world, so maybe it makes sense there should be lots of snakes named Gary as well. This is essentially what the Zootopia 2 screenwriter said in a publicity interview within New York Times. He's named Gary, because I think Gary is a hilarious name. I apologize to the Gary's of the world.

But multiple times over the years, when I've been writing a nice guy character, it's Gary. But needless to say, the Goldman family, fresh off seven years of legal hell, do not see things this way. Who gets the angriest, among all the Goldman's?

Who gets the angriest? Oh, well, my younger son, I can't show you, but I'm in my office and there's a door that has a broken hinge. which was when he punched the door in anger after one of these rulings. The repository of Goldman anger

is in the youngest son. Do you know what this, the psychological principle here is called transactive memory. You know how in families we store our memories in other members of our family. That's why the family unit is so powerful.

But you guys have transactive anger. So you hear about this and you think you have a sense of reboding and where do you see, when did you go see Zootopia 2 in the theater? Oh, the day before it opened. I mean, we tried to sneak, you know, we tried to get tickets to screening. They wouldn't even give you a ticket to the premiere? Oh, no, no, no, they don't talk to me.

I mean, I'm, no, no, I didn't ask for them, we're not in touch. The whole Goldman family, Gary, his wife, Judy, their two grown sons, gather at a movie theater in Dublin, California, just east of San Francisco. So we go there sitting and we watch as this story unfolds. And my wife says, he looks like you. I said, what are you talking about? The snake looks like me. She says, yeah, don't you see?

She's an artist. And so she says, yeah, I can see how that. I think they, you know, in any case, she thinks Gary the Snake looks like maybe. Now, does Gary DeSnake really look like Gary Goldman? Or is this just the Goldman's being paranoid? Well, let me describe Gary Goldman. He's 72. He has large, expressive eyes, a self-effacing, understated manner. I mean, you've heard him speak. Match that voice to your mental image of your kindly uncle. And what is Gary DeSnake? Weirdly, a nice snake, a sweetheart snake. Large expressive eyes, a self-effacing, understated manner, middle-aged, with one fang instead of two, conceptually defanged, as the middle-aged so often are. Oh, Gary, Gary, the snake.

And your last name? The snake. Everything is going to be okay. Gary says that after the movie came out, all kinds of people texted him to say, Gary, the snake looks just like you. And when I went to Cesar Topia 2 with my daughter, right after I'd interviewed Gary,

that was my first thought as well. Good Lord, it's the same guy. Oh, so. Well, Gary doesn't have bad teeth. So the fan was a metaphor. But, yeah. Yeah. So Gary is this, Gary the snake is sweet.

His eyebrows kind of go up a little bit. His eyes kind of drew a little bit. I called up Goldman's lawyer, Deborah Drews. I mean, this is going to sound ridiculous. The snake kind of looks Jewish. Yes. The snake looks Jewish. I'm Jewish.

100%. Okay. I'm Jewish, so no. Anyway, yes, I did think the snake looked Jewish. And I thought the way he behaved and the way he moved, Gary Goldman's a sweet. He's a sweet guy. So every once in a while, just that's that southern charm,

and there's a little, you know, like when you're playing a stringed instrument and bends a string, and it gives you a little twigsy a little twang. That's scary, you know. Charming, sweet. So, yeah, that was scary, the snake. I mean, it was clear to me. And I think it probably is clear

to the people who worked on both films, just saying. Oh, by the way, a good chunk of the movie takes place in a swampy coastal area called Marsh Market. And I'm quoting now from review of the movie. Marsh Market could well be the Zootopia equivalent of New Orleans. Everybody thinks this. Here's the L.A. Times critic Matt Brennan, interviewing the screenwriter and director of Zootopia before the movie came out.

That you mentioned Marsh Market, and I have to say, is a longtime New Orlean. I love seeing a Zatopia version of a Bayou. Why does all this matter? Because Gary Goldman is from New Orleans. Orleans and because Gary Goldman is Jewish. But still, I know what you're thinking. We haven't yet crossed over into scandal. That's after the break. Last summer, I went to the south of France for work right on the beach. It had all the usual French touches, the beautiful architecture, the amazing food, the waiters who don't give you the time of day, which I just love. But you know what I remember

the most? I discovered a barista who made, and this is going to sound like hyperbole, the world's greatest cup of coffee. I just happened to come across him because he had set up shop right by where I was staying. It was pure serendipity, and that's what I've learned over the years, that so much of the delight you get from a vacation depends on where you stay. Location, amenities, random coffee shops, these things are important. And sometimes something about a place just says, yes, this feels right. My home has many of those same yes qualities, the light, the street, the layout. And at some point it occurred to me, while I'm away, my own place is just sitting there, and it doesn't have to be. All the reasons my home feels right to me are the same reasons it might

feel right to somebody else. Hosting your home can be a simple way to make use of a place that's already there. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.combe.com forward slash host. Screenwriters put caricatures of real people in movies all the time. Many people believe, for example, that Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies is Lorne Michaels,

the creator of Saturday Night Live. The villain of Ian Fleming's James Bond thriller Goldfinger, rumor has it, was based on the modernist architect Erno Goldfinger, who Fleming was feuding with at the time because Goldfinger built an incredibly ugly house,

down the road from him. So what? If the Walt Disney Company wants to make a movie about a middle-aged Jewish snake named Gary from New Orleans, that's not a crime. But now we get to the heart of the issue, which is, what is Zootopia 2 really about? Well, it's a movie about intellectual property. Zootopia exists because of incredibly sophisticated weather walls that make it possible for animals from all over the world to live in one place. The walls were invented by Agnes de Snake, Gary's great-grandmother, who wanted to build a world where all animals could live in harmony. But her patent was stolen by the evil lynxes who runs Utopia, big, chubby evil lynxes,

literally corporate fat cats. Listen to how Poppert Linkley describes his family's scheme. But when my great-grandfather saw what her idea could be worth, he plotted to to steal her plans for himself. The lynx has then cast all the reptiles out of Zootopia to keep their theft secret. And the plot of the movie involves the intrepid team of Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, teaming up with Gary DeSnake to get the patent back,

restore the snake family's good name, and bring reptiles back into the city of Zutopia. The whole plot of Zutopia, too. The entire movie, is about repairing the dam. damage done by the theft of intellectual property. Snakes aren't the bad guys. I have to set things right. And when I do, my family will finally be able to come home.

So, to recap, just as the Walt Disney Company emerges from a bruising seven-year legal battle, in which a Jewish man from Louisiana named Gary claimed that he invented Zootopia and had his idea stolen by the corporate fat cats at the Walt Disney. Company. The Walt Disney Company comes out with a sequel to Zootopia in which the central character is a Jewish snake from Louisiana named Gary, whose family invented Zootopia and had their idea stolen by a bunch of corporate fat cats. This is why Gary Goldman called Angus Fletcher and why Angus Fletcher called me. And so Zootopia, too, is basically an allegory. of what Disney did to Gary in Zootopia One,

but it's an allegory that's created by Disney. So anyway, that was the point where my mind imploded, and I knew we had to call Malcolm. This is why I love Angus, because whenever his mind implodes, he thinks of me. The movie's over. Right. The Goldman's Walkout.

Right. And what do you guys do? Do you guys go out to dinner and discuss? What do you do? How do you download all this information? Well, Malcolm, I don't think we've, We are filled with questions and doubts. We're now in the twilight zone.

Disney has spent over $300 million producing and marketing this movie. And it seems to me that it's about me and this lawsuit. It really sucks. And we're trying to figure out how this happened. Whose idea was it? Is the company behind this? Is it an official statement of the company? Did the writer who were carried over from the last movie?

Did they have something to do with this? If you think that all this is paranoid nonsense, then I suggest once again you go to Seasutopia 2 for yourself. And there will come a point, trust me, when the insanity of the plot will become impossible to ignore and you will turn to the little person next to you nursing their popcorn and you will cover their ears and say out loud along with everyone else in the crowded theater. WTF. sneak it past the Disney legal department? Does the Disney legal department know about it?

If the legal department knows about it, why did they approve it? If the Disney higher-ups know about it. Why did they approve it? No way Disney Legal Department knew about this, right, Angus? No way. No way. No, this is that we can we can remove that possibility. This sounds to me, so somehow, somehow the, the, this, Gary, the, this, this, Gary, the, this, Snake, as the positive portrayal of Gary the Snake, sneaks past the Disney legal and corporate infrastructure. This is an unbelievable. This is a, we're now in a heist movie.

They sneak the idea out of Disney, out of Burbank. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Malcolm, why did the studio make a movie that can be interpreted as reopening a case that that was settled. They won. And now they're going to talk about it again.

And to me, all this does, I mean, from a personal and legal point of view, it invites speculation. Were there clues in the original litigation that might help us make sense of what happened? I checked with Deborah Drew's, Gary's lawyer. Are there copies in the public realm of those depositions of all those Disney guys?

Do you have copies of them? I have a couple of answers for you, but one of them is that Disney was, it was very scrupulous about obtaining a protective order in which pretty much anything that Disney said was proprietary or confidential or this trade secret would have to be filed under seal, so not accessible to the public. So then I thought, well, I'll just go to the top. I emailed the CEO of Disney himself, the redoubtable Bob Iger.

Hi, Bob. Happy New Year. I have become obsessed with Zootopia, too, and the question of whether the movie is an encoded apology to Gary Goldman. It's maybe my favorite Hollywood story ever, and as you may know, Gary Goldman is interpreting the film's hidden message as an act of graciousness on Disney's part. Would you ever consider talking about this for my podcast,

even five minutes, even if you just want to say something brief and funny? I just saw it with my four-year-old. Anyway, I know this is a long shot, but thought you might enjoy a little distraction from your day, M. He writes back, first of all, great to hear from you, and the picture of you with a four-year-old makes me smile.

Kids are truly life-changers and blessings, aren't they? Then he goes on, regarding Zootopia and Gary, I am sorry to tell you, I cannot comment. I should say, Bob Iger is an incredibly kind and gracious man, and there is a version of the story where he is the hero, the greatest of all heroes,

the kind who can never publicly acknowledge their courageous act. There is also a version where he was the victim of a crime so perfect that he can never bring the offender to justice. We will get there, I promise. Okay, would anyone else talk? I called up Hollywood Big Shots, moguls. No one would go in the record. Don't use this.

Or you can use this, but don't use my name, like this guy. I'm not sure why they did it, to be honest with you. Yeah. Because, like, that's so on the nose, and it's such a bleep you, if you pardon my French. I mean, I didn't know they were that bold, to be honest with it. I kind of laugh about it. I think it's funny. It's funny.

But it's hysterical. But here's the truth. You rarely poke talent in the eye. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I don't know how the lawsuit ended, but I would guess this. a little bitterness because people don't lose wealth, right? So I just find it wildly bizarre.

It's too good. It's too good. I kept going, mogul upon mogul. Hi, redacted. I'm doing a very strange and hilarious story about Disney and Zootopia, too, and wanted to talk to you about it. The mogul writes back. Nice to connect.

I would talk to you about anything except Disney. I respond. I totally understand, redacted. But I appreciate you getting back to me. I suspect that you will at least be amused by what we end up doing. It's a story about how the script for Zootopia II never should have gotten past Disney legal. Moga writes back.

Not surprised. Good luck. On a matter of Gary DeSnake and Zootopia II, there is nothing but silence from the powers that be. We have been left to our own devices. And there is nothing in the world more exciting on a story as strange as this than being left to our own devices. Next week on Revisionous History Part 2,

we venture a bold theory about what exactly happened behind the closed doors of the Walt Disney Corporation. Revisionist History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Nadaf Halfrey. Our editor is Karen Chikurgy, fact-checking by Sam Rusick, Our executive producer is Jacob Smith, engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, original music by Luis Scarea, sound design and mastering by Marcelo di Oliveira. I'm Malcolm Glabo.