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The recent Disney movie Zootopia has a scene with newscasters. This scene changes based on the area/country where the movie is released. Why?

Are they just representatives of animals native to those area, with changes to their personality reflecting that? Or are they meant to reflect something deeper, like parodies/references to specific real life newscasters, or real-world newscaster/regional styles?

And Why only the male newscaster?

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Sub-question, why did France get the moose too? Moose haven't been in France since the Roman Empire era.

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There doesn't appear to be a clear reason behind how they decided to use certain animals and broadcasters for certain reasons.

The full breakdown is:

  • In the American, Canadian, French versions, he is a moose. The moose is called Peter Moosebridge which is a reference to Canadian news anchor Peter Mansbridge, who voices him.
  • In the Brazilian version, he's a jaguar, voiced by Brazilian journalist Ricardo Boechat.
  • In the Japanese version, he's a tanuki, voiced by someone as of yet unknown (film to be released 23 April 2016)
  • In the Australian and New Zealand versions, he's a koala named David Koalabell, voiced by Australian entertainer David Campbell.
  • In the British version, he's a corgi, voiced by someone as of yet unknown (film to be released 25 March 2016)
  • In the Chinese version, he's a panda, voiced by someone as of yet unknown (film released, but newscaster cast details unknown).

Looking at each of these animals by location:

  • A moose fits the Canadian version. It obviously doesn't fit the French version, but they appear to have lumped them all together in a single release version.
  • A jaguar fits the Brazilian version.
  • A tanuki is also known as the Japanese racoon dog, so it fits that region.
  • A koala fits the Austrlian version, and, like the French with the American verison, doesn't remotely fit New Zealand, but they appear to have been given it anyway.
  • A corgi fits the British version, in particular due to Queen Elizabeth II's well known fondness for the animal.
  • A panda fits the Chinese version.

So the animals all fit at least one of the regions in which their version of the film is being released. The bigger question is obviously why were these regions put together in this way. It doesn't quite follow DVD regions, or any other pattern I can see, so for now this appears to be unknown. I'd say it's most likely that they were going to personalise a limited amount of regions and France wasn't one of them. Once they'd personalised the rest, which region did France best fit in to? The US/Canada release is probably most likely given Canada's closeness with France.

On a side note, this isn't the first time Disney has done this. Other examples of Disney altering their films for different audiences include:

Inside Out:

In Japan, the broccoli Riley despises so much is replaced with green bell peppers, where the food is far more hated by the country's children.

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Similarly, Riley's dad dreams about hockey in some releases, and football in others:

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Captain America: Winter Soldier:

The list of cultural things the Captain says he'll catch up on is different depending on the region, with the US, the UK, Russia, South Korea, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Australia, and Brazil all getting their own personalised variations.

Cars 2:

The Jeff Gordon voiced Race Car Jeff Govette is changed to other real life race car drivers for the areas they were released in.

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  • Some people are saying the spanish version is also the moose. Some are saying they got the Jaguar, despite Brazil being portugues and not spanish. The moose is probably the default "non-localized" version.
    – cde
    Commented Mar 8, 2016 at 9:52
  • That's what I've read, but I've nothing definitive to back it up. It just seems to be the case.
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Mar 8, 2016 at 10:26
  • The moose in the French version may be influenced by some kind of confusion between francophones in Quebec, who are familiar with both zombies and Mansbridge, and those in France who are not. It would be complicated to have two French versions.
    – James McLeod
    Commented Mar 8, 2016 at 11:57
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    I'd guess that they lumped Francophone countries together for one single French version. Canada isn't particularly "close" to France, culturally speaking (or, obviously, physically) - hasn't been for a very long time. BUT, Disney would have had to release a French version (or at least French subtitles) for Canada, since French is one of our official languages. It would've been easier to do just one French release for them and France, rather than doing several separate ones just so they could cater one or two little moments to each individual country.
    – ghostdog
    Commented Mar 8, 2016 at 18:51
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    Similarly, no one watching Inside Out in Japan is going to think for a second that it’s set in Japan, bell peppers or no: the proportion of characters of various ethnicities, the look of the buildings, and a million other things make it very clear. It goes the other way, too: the notorious “jelly donut” onigiri in Pokemon. Giving people in other countries an inaccurate representation of one’s own culture in order to increase relatability is..a little odd. People find Rey and Luke relatable despite the fact that they eat jogan fruits and ride speeders, after all.
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented Sep 12, 2017 at 22:54

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