Malcolm Gladwell

I called up Goldman's lawyer, Deborah Drews.

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 a review of the movie.

Marsh Market could well be the Zootopia equivalent of New Orleans.

Everybody thinks this.

Here's the LA Times critic Matt Brennan interviewing the screenwriter and director of Zootopia before the movie came out.

Why does all this matter?

Because Gary Goldman is from New 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.

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 II 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.