wannabeanimator:

“In November 2014, the team behind Disney’s Zootopia had a very bad day. After years of development and production, they realized a huge aspect of their movie didn’t work. There were two main characters, one primary and one secondary— and they had to be flipped for the film to make sense.

For years, Nick was the focus on the film, with Hopps playing a crucial, but secondary role. But on that fateful November day, a little over a year before the film’s release, director Byron Howard realized they had to make the switch.

‘We’re telling a story about bias, and when you have the Nick character starting the movie, through his eyes the city was already broken,’ Howard said. ‘He didn’t like Zootopia.’

‘We asked ‘What are we saying with the movie?’ If we’re telling this movie about bias—something that is everywhere and in all of us, whether we want to admit it or not—the character that’s going to help us tell that message is Judy, an innocent, [who comes] from a very supportive environment where she thinks everyone is beautiful, everyone gets along,’ Howard said. ‘Then let Nick, this character who knows the truth about the world, bop up against her and they start to educate each other. When we flipped that, it was a major flip, but it worked so much better.’

In changing the movie, Howard, Bush, Rawley and others found that they were better able to incorporate the film’s message of inclusion and harmony, along with a satisfying story.”