Time was, animated films, even from the biggest studios, would mostly cast professional voice actors to portray characters in the film. Mainstream Hollywood names appearing in animated films was often a gimmick. For example, The Transformers: The Movie which cast the likes of Leonard Nimoy, Judd Nelson, and goddamned Orson Welles. But nowadays, it’s the big-name actors who get most of the voice work in major animated films. The same holds true in non-English releases of these major films. For Zootopia 2‘s Japanese release, who do you think would play the character Josh Gad played in English? If you said legendary video game creator Hideo Kojima, you are both correct and weird.
As we saw on IGN, Kojima—the iconoclast behind the Metal Gear franchise, Death Stranding, and the upcoming OD—provides the voice of desk-riding police officer Paul Moledebrandt, a near-sighted mole, in the Japanese release of Zootopia 2. (Sidebar: in the UK, Zootopia is called Zootropolis for some reason. Not relevant, just a fact.) Josh Gad, as mentioned, provided the English voice of Moledebrandt. In fact, the character even kind of looks like Gad, especially with the rectangular glasses. And the glasses might be the only thing Gad and Kojima immediately have in common. Is that all it takes? I wear glasses, Greg, can you milk me?
Zootopia 2 hasn’t even premiered yet in Japan (it will do so this Friday, December 5) but already it’s a monster global hit. In its initial five-day holiday weekend, the movie made $556 million. The Chinese market accounted for over $200 million of that, which even outshone the US, where it still made a very impressive $156 million. That puts the movie at number four on the all-time list of biggest global openings ever. The other three? Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. August company indeed, and certainly the kind of hit Disney really needs.
As for Kojima, go to Japan, see the movie, and listen for his glasses to make an appearance.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
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