So Are Nick And Judy A Couple Or What?
Alongside burning questions like ‘What do the predators eat?', Zootopia left viewers wondering whether Nick and Judy were friends or something more.
Alongside such burning questions as ‘What on earth do the predators in Zootopia eat?’, one puzzle posed by the movie was whether or not Nick and Judy are a couple – let’s look at the evidence. Released in 2016, the Walt Disney Animation Studios-produced Zootopia raked in over a billion dollars worldwide, giving the studio its biggest hit since 2013’s Frozen and scoring the House of Mouse its third Best Animated Feature win at the Oscars.
The animated adventure is set in the titular Zootopia, a bustling metropolis in which anthropomorphic predators and prey live together in relative harmony. That's until rookie rabbit cop Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin, Once Upon A Time) and con artist fox turned ally Nick (Jason Bateman) uncover a citywide conspiracy to turn its vegetarian and carnivorous residents against each other.
Although there was a buddy cop element to Nick and Judy’s relationship in Zootopia, that didn’t stop fans from shipping them together – logistics of a fox-rabbit love affair be damned. To give the Nick and Judy shippers credit, inferring a romantic undertone isn’t totally out of left field. The pair developed a great friendship over the course of Zootopia and there was a spark between them that could turn into something more. Not to mention that Judy admits she loves Nick at the end of Zootopia, although that could be explained as platonic love and playful banter.
Zootopia co-directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore added fuel to the shipper fire when they revealed the existence of a deleted storyboard scene that saw Nick and Judy arriving at Judy’s apartment, only to be ambushed by her parents and siblings who assume Nick is her boyfriend. It would seem the Nick and Judy shippers weren’t the only ones entertaining the possibility of a romantic spark between them.
Currently, however, there’s not really enough definitive proof in Zootopia to say for sure that Nick and Judy are a couple. That said, Rich Moore stated in a 2016 interview with EW that the possibility of a romance between Nick and Judy would be something that could be explored if they ever made a Zootopia sequel. While Disney has yet to confirm whether a follow-up is in the works, Tom Lister Jr. - who voiced Finnick - stated in early 2019 here are not one but two Zootopia sequels in development. If that’s true, the Nick and Judy shippers could have an answer to the ‘are they a couple of not’ mystery sooner than they think.
