¶ A Puzzling Hollywood Enigma
Bushkin. On a recent snowy day, I took my four and a half year old to a movie theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side. This was only her second time ever at the movies. She was very excited. I bought her a large tub of popcorn. The theater was crowded. We were there to see Disney's Zutopia Too, a film that is now the highest grossing animated movie of all time.
We sat enraptured for the better part of two hours, and at the end she turned to me and said, thank you, Daddy, And I said to her, Oh, this wasn't for you, this was for me. I'm an assignment. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. The story I'm about to tell you is the strangest Hollywood story you have ever heard. It makes no sense, It invites all
manner of absurd speculation. It's going to take us two episodes to unravel it, and even then your mind will be in such a swirl that you will almost certainly feel compelled to seize Utopia two for yourself. And if you've already seen it, to grab any one of your available children and see it again. And to whisper under your breath when you think your little companion isn't listening. WTF.
¶ Gary Goldman's Original Zootopia Pitch
All of this started when we got a call from Angus Fletcher saying a friend of his needed to speak to me. It was urgent. The friend had a story to tell, a story with so many layers. The friend said that there was no way to do it justice in a single episode two minimum for future reference. If you need to get my attention, this is the way to do it, all right, can you hear me? They are Gary, Angus. The gang is back together right away. I hopped on a zoom with two of them.
If you want, I mean, I can tell you how the story started, and then Gary, you wanna go?
Okay, all right? Jump in.
If you are a longtime listener of Revisionist History, you will know the name Angus Fletcher. He's an English professor at Ohio State and runs their narrative project. I love Angus. I think Angus is a genius. Angus has been featured on more Revisionist History episodes than anyone else. Our three part rewrite of the Little Mermaid in Defense of Paw patrol and and this is relevant to the story I'm
about to tell you. We did a series of episodes a few years back called Development Hell, where we interviewed screenwriters about their best idea that never made it to the screen, and the Angus came on to talk about an absolutely been nana sci fi project he worked on with a good friend of his, the Hollywood screenwriter Gary Goldman. And during that episode I concluded that not only is Angus a genius, but Gary is a genius too. Anyway, back to the matter at hand.
So basically I get a phone call from Gary, and Gary and I are old friends. We brought together in a bunch of screenwriting projects. Gary's one of the most famous and eminent screenwriters in Hollywood. If you love the end to Total Recall, you can thank Gary for that.
Gary Goldman grew up in the South. He was a protege of the novelist Walker Percy, went to Brandeis, spent some time working in a hospital in Israel during the Yongkpur War, ended up in Hollywood and has worked with everyone Paul Verhoeven, James Cameron Ridley, Scott, David Fincher, Steven Spielberg.
So Gary calls me up and he goes, Angus, have you seen Disney's latest movie?
Here?
Angus is referring to the first Zotopia film, which came out in twenty sixteen, featuring a rabbit named Judy Hops and a con artist fox named Nick Wilde, who live in a world inhabited entirely by animals, and who have to work together to solve a mystery involving the disappearance of predators. It's very good Zutopia, a gleaming city.
Were animals of all breeds, predator and prey alike, lived together in peace and harmony.
Zutopia did very well. It grows to zillion dollars and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Gary watched all this success closely.
And it's a big deal. I mean, it's a big family. But I got to send you to pictures of us drinking champagne when Zutopia won won the Academy Award. I mean, this is our lost daughter who knew Yah was doing great.
Why was this such a big deal for Gary? Here's what he told Angus.
And so he tells me the story of how he goes to the Disney, how he pitched them this idea, how he wrote it down on a physical document which he gave to and he goes, I think they might have stolen my idea. I said, what's on this document? And Gary goes to me, okay, Well, in my pitch it says, when you grow up, quote, if you want to be an elephant, you can be an elephant. And in Disney's movie, it says, quote you want to be an elephant, when you grow up, you can be an elephant.
And in Gary's pitch it says, this is going to take place in a land where quote an animal can be whatever it wants to be. And in Disney's movie it says this is going to take place in the land where quote anybody can be anything. And then I say to Gary, what is this land? And Gary says to me, in my pitch, it's called Zootopia, And amazingly, in the Disney movie, it's called Zootopia.
Wait, okay, so there's so many things to to to pick up on. Gary, take me back to the beginning about the origins of the idea of a movie called Zutopia. What period of time are we talking about here.
Two thousand, two thousands, Yeah, I have two sons, and my sons were I don't know, four and six, and you know, at that time, you start thinking about, oh, what can I do creatively that my kids can relate to? And so I came up under interesting, very specific circumstances
¶ Developing the Mythic Zootopia World
with the idea for Zutopia. And I'll tell you when I came up with the words utopia, I was elated, and I ran into my house and I ran upstairs and I talked to my wife. I said, you're not going to believe. I've got the most incredible title. I've got the most incredible idea. It's called Zutopia. You know, I don't know. I don't think it's such a great idea, I said, trust me, trust me, it's a really it's
a really good name. In fact, we can't say this word in front of the kids because if we say this word in front of the kids, they're going to go to school and they're the parents of these kids are in show business, and then the word is going to get out, and it's very hard to protect a title.
Yeah, so we just have to keep secrecy.
Yeah, we had to keep it secret.
Fast forward nine years, Goldman's doing a project with the comic book legend stan Lee for Disney, and he goes to the Disney exec he's working with and he says, I have this idea, gives them an eight page outline of the concept. It's called Looney. It's about an animator
who creates an animal world called Zootopia. He has drawings of the animals who are going to inhabit the Zutopia world, Roscoe the hyena, who is cynical and obnoxious, his ssidekick Mimi the squirrel, who is cute and curvaceous and optimistic. Goldman thinks that this is the best idea he's ever had for a movie, and Angus agrees.
So first of all, I just want to point out that you have the writer of Total Recall, which is generally considered to be one of the greatest stories of all time, telling you that Total Recall is nothing compared to Zutopia.
So I should give you some indication.
And you know, Gary's legitimately a story genius. Why is Zutopia so good? Well, because what you're really trying to do with a story is not just create a plot. You're trying to create a world. That's why Star Wars is so brilliant, Because the movie great, But really what you want is you want to wander around with lightsabers and Darth Vader and the Force and the Jedi and Lea and all that kind of stuff, And Zutobia is
exactly the same thing. Utopia is a mythic universe. When Gary first told me this, he sent me a basically a Bible, which went on for, you know, hundreds and hundreds of slides explaining to me all this sort of like complex mythography behind Utopia. So I'm not going to pretend to be able to kind of expound that to you here. It was like having a conversation with like
Joseph Campbell or something. But basically the point is is that you have an entire universe in which these animals are there to expose the lie that you can be whatever it is that you want to be. I mean, that's basically. The twist is that we are all told these fables in America growing up, which is you can be whatever you want to be.
Yeah, yeah, Kerry, Yeah.
Well the idea here is all of us tell our kids pretty much, or you have to decide whether or not to tell your kids you can be whatever you want to do when you grow up, and there's an enormous pressure to say it, even though we know as adults that's not exactly true. That's really kind of magical thinking masquerading as good advice. So do you want to send your kids out into the world knowing nothing except
you can be whatever you want to be? And then you just go out there and try, try, try, try, try, and then you encounter real life and you're not prepared for it. On the other hand, if you don't teach your kids that, they're going to be totally out competed like all the other kids in the class who have been told they can be whatever they want to be.
So I wanted to basically surround this these cliches of conventional wisdom with ridiculous any cautionary tales about animals who are told they can do whatever they want to be and basically encounter the constraints that all of us encounter in life.
The world where all this took place was z utopia.
¶ Disney's Rejection and Legal Battle
Gary takes his idea to the executive he's working with a Disney The executive, according to Goldman, basically says, this is interesting. Should I give it to the folks over to animation?
I said submit it. He said, okay, and I got my papers together and I put it in the portfolio and I handed it to him, and then I hear from my agent they passed, you know, that's all. They passed.
Six years go by, and then one day Gary gets a call from one of his sons.
Both of my sons are in the cardigether and they said, they said, Dad, we're driving down the freeway and we see a billboard and you're not going to believe it, but it has your looney characters on it. I said, my looney characters. What are you talking about?
Is?
Yeah, you know, you're you're, You're there. It's a giant billboard and it's got your characters on it. And I said, that's it. Said what's the name of the movie, And he says Utopia, And he had never heard the words Utopia. He called me up to tell me that he'd seen my Looney characters, So I know, I was flabber guested.
Obviously, the Goldmans go and sees Utopia at the Grove in Los Angeles. They can't believe it. As far as Gary can tell, his character Roscoe, the cynical, obnoxious hyena, has been turned into Nick Wilde, the cynical, obnoxious fox and his optimistic, cravacious scirrel Mimi has become the optimistic, cravacious rabbit. Judy Hops Goldman gets one of the biggest and baddest of law firms, Quinn Emmanuel, to represent him. Quin Emmanuel does not usually take suits like this, but
for Gary, they make an exception. That's how compelling his case seems. So Quinn Emmanuel files a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement. The case goes on for seven years. Everyone who is anyone at Disney is to post. What's Disney's defense?
Is it?
They never saw it?
Yes, never saw it, because, so.
They claim, is a series of incredible coincidences.
That's right, Yeah, yes, called independent independent courage.
Just like I independently created Mickey Mouse the other day.
Yeah.
And what happens. Goldman loses, He appeals, loses again, He switches to state court, loses. The courts find that the similarities between Gary's idea and z Utopia didn't look like copyright infringement, and the case is dismissed before the courts ever get to the question of whether Disney actually used Goldman's pitch. So the Goldmans give up the fight.
Yeah.
Now, there are a million things to say here. The first is that it isn't surprising that Goldman loses his copyright case against Disney. It's almost impossible under current case law for a writer to win a case like this against the studio. In one analysis, two Los Angeles lawyers looked at over fifty copyright infringement cases writers brought against
Hollywood studios, and in every case, the plaintiff lost. The law basically says you have to show that your work was copied word for a word, and of course you can steal someone's idea without copying it word for word. I could go on and on about this, but I won't because what matters is what happens next.
¶ The Enigmatic "Gary the Snake"
Then Gary calls me up a few months ago and he says, at Angus, have you seen the sequel to z Utopia? And I said, no, Garret, I have not. What happens in the sequel to Utopia?
Exactly? That's the question, what happens in the sequel to Utopia? Everyone has a theory. Why do you think I dragged my daughter to see z Utopia too? Because I have a theory. Garry Goldwin has a theory. The team of movie buffs and literary analysts we put on the case have a theory. You will have a theory too once you finished listening. And why does everyone have a theory, because there is absolutely something weird going on with Utopia
too that requires a theory. That's after the break. At what point do you hear that there's a sequel in the works.
I mean, it takes years and years to make these movies. I mean they were making beginning to make the sequel while we're still involved in the lawsuit.
We're back with Angus Fletcher and Gary Goldman, and the sensitive topic of the sequel has finally come up.
Oh truly interesting because the main character in the sequel to Utopia is called Gary the Snake.
The sequel's central character is a snake called Gary the Snake.
And I thought, well, that's obviously they're just planning to know, don't make it. Don't make a character a snake unless you're planning to. I mean, so you're in.
The odd thought when you heard of this character, Gary the Snake, as it it was.
An attack on it, as a personal attack on it.
Now, of course this could just be a coincidence. Gary is a common name. There are lots of Gary's in the world, so maybe it makes sense there should be lots of snakes named Gary as well. This is essentially what the Zutopia two screenwriter said in a publicity interview with The New York Times. He's because I think Gary is a hilarious name. I apologize to the Garys of the world. But multiple times over the years, when I've
been writing a nice guy character, it's Gary. But needless to say, the Goldman family, fresh off seven years of legal hell, do not see things this way? Who gets the angriest among all the Goldmans? Who gets the angriest?
Oh, well, my younger son, I can't show you, but I'm in my office and there's a door that has a broken hinge, which was when he punched the door in anger after one of these rulings.
The repository of Goldman anger is in the youngest scent. Do you know what this is? The psychological principle here is called transactive memory. You know how in families we store our memories in other members of our family. That's why the family unit is so powerful. But you guys have transactive anger. So you hear about this and you think you have a sense of foreboding. And where do you see? When did you go Seesar Twopia two in the theater?
Oh? The day before it opened. I mean we tried to you know, we tried to get tickets to screening.
They wouldn't even give you a ticket to the premiere.
Oh no, no, they don't talk to me. I mean, I'm no, no, no, no, I didn't ask them. We're not in touch.
The whole Goldman family, Gary, his wife Judy, their two grown sons gather at a movie theater in Dublin, California, just east of San Francisco.
So we go there for sitting and we watches this story unfold and my wife says, he looks like you. I said, what are you talking about? This snake looks like me? He says yeah, she she's an artist. And so she says, yeah, I can see how that. I think they you know, in any case, she thinks, Garry the snake looks like me.
Now does Gary the snake really look like Gary Goldman? Or is this just the Goldman's being paranoid? Well, let me describe Gary Goldman. He's seventy two, his large, expressive eyes, a self effacing, understated manner. I mean, and you've heard him speak, match that voice to your mental image of
your kindly uncle. And what is GARYD. Snake? Weirdly? A nice snake, a sweetheart snake, large expressive eyes, a self effacing, understated manner, middle aged with one fang instead of two, conceptually defanged as the middle aged so often are.
Oh Gary, Gary D Snake and your last being snake.
Everything is going to be okay. Gary says that after the movie came out, all kinds of people texted him to say, Gary, the snake looks just like you. And when I went to Caesar Twop You two with my daughter right after I'd interviewed Gary, that was my first thought, as well, good lord, it's the same guy.
Oh so.
Well, Gary doesn't have that cheat. So the the fang was afore but but yeah, man, I'm so Gary. Is this Gary the snake is sweet? His eyebrows kind of go up a little bit, his eyes kind of drew a little bit.
I called up Goldman's lawyer, Debra Drews.
I mean, this is gonna sound ridiculous. The snake kind of looks Jewish.
Yes, this snake looks Jewish.
Yeah, said okay, I'm Jewish, so no, uh. Anyway, yes, I did think the snake looked Jewish, and I thought the way he behaved and the way he moved. Gary Goldman's a sweet He's a sweet guy. So every once in a while that just that Southern charm. And there's a little you know, like when you're playing a stringed instrument and bend the string and it gives you a little it gives you a little twang. That's Gary, you know, charming.
So yeah, that was That was Gary the Snake. I mean that it was clear to me, and I think it probably is clear to the people who worked on both films.
Just saying, 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 z Utopia equivalent of New Orleans. Everybody thinks this. Here's the La Times critic Matt Brennan interviewing the screenwriter and director of Zutopia before the movie came out.
That you mentioned Marsh Market, and I have to say, is a longtime New Orleanian.
I love seeing version of a Bye. Why does all this matter because Gary Goldbman 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 gandal. That's after the break. Screenwriters put caricatures of real people in movies all the time. Many people believe, for example, that Doctor Evil in the Austin Powers movies is Lorne Michaels, the creator of Saturday Night Live the Villanevian 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.
¶ Zootopia 2: An Allegory of Theft
But now we get to the heart of the issue, which is what is Utopia Too really about? Well, it's a movie about intellectual property. Zutopia exists because of incredibly sophisticated weather walls. They make it possible for animals from all over the world to live in one place. The walls were invented by Agnes to Snake, Gary's great grandmother, who wanted to build a world where all animals could live in harmony, but her pattern was stolen by the
evil Lynxes who run Utopia. Big chubby, evil Lynxes literally corporate fatcats. Listen to how Paupert Lynxley describes his family's scheme, But.
When my great grandfather saw what her idea could be worth, he plotted to steal her plans for himself.
The lynx has then cast all the Reptiles out of Zutopia to keep their theft a secret, and the plot of the movie involves the intrepid team of Judy Hops and Nick Wilde teaming up with Gary to Snake to get the patent back, restore the Snake family's good name, and bring reptiles back into the city of Zutopia. The whole plot of Zutopia, too, the entire movie is about repairing the damage done by the theft of intellectual property Snake on the bad guys.
I have to set things right, and when I do, my family will finally be able to come home.
So t Rika. Just as the Walt Disney Company emerges from a bruising seven year legal battle in which a Jewish man from Louisiana named Gary claimed that he invented Zutopia and had his idea stolen by the corporate fat cats at the Walt Disney Company. The Walt Disney Company comes out with a sequel to z Utopia in which the central character is a Jewish snake from Louisiana named Gary, whose family invented Zutopia and had their ideas stolen by
a bunch of corporate fact cats. This is why Gary Goldman called Angus Fletcher, and why Angus Fletcher called me, And.
So Zootobia IWO is basically an allegory of what Disney did to Gary in Zootopia one, but it's an allegory that's created by Disney. So anyway, that was the point where my mind imploded and I knew we had to call Malcolm.
This is why I love Angus because whenever his mind implodes, he thinks of me. The movie's over, the Goldmans walk out, right, and what do you guys do? Do you guys go out to dinner and discuss?
What do you do?
How do you download all this information?
Well, Malcolm is I don't think we are filled with questions and doubs. We were now in the twilight zone. Disney has spent over three hundred million dollars producing and marketing this movie. Yeah, and it seems to me that it's about me and this lawsuit. Yeah, it really sucks, and we're trying to figure out how this happened? Did whose idea was it? Is the company behind this? Is
it an official statement of the company? Did the writer who are carried over from the last movie, did they have something to do with this?
If you think that all this is paranoid nonsense, then I suggest once again you go to see ze Utopia two for yourself and they will come a point, trust me, when the insanity of the plot will become impossible to ignore, and you will turn to the little person next to you nursing their popcorn, and you will cover their ears and say out loud, along with everyone else in the crowded theater, wtf.
Did they sneak it past? Did the Disney legal department? Does the Disney legal department know about it? It's a legal If any legal knows about it, why did they approve it? It's the Disney higher ups know about it? Why did they approve it?
No way Disney legal department knew about this, right Angus, No way, no way, no, this is that let's we can we can remove that possibility. This sounds to me so somehow, somehow, the the this Gary the Snake as a the positive portrayal of Gary the Snake sneaks past the Disney legal and corporate infrastructure.
This is unbelievable. This is we're now in that We're now in a heist movie. They sneak the idea out of Disney, out of Burban.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Now why did the studio make a movie that can be interpreted as reopening a case that that was settled? They won? Yeah, and now they're going to talk about it again? And to me, all this does but I mean, from a personal and legal point of view, it invites speculation.
Were there clues in the original litigation that might help us make sense of what happened? I checked with Deborah Dru's Gary's lawyer. Are there copies in the public realm of those depositions of all those Disney guys? Do you have copies of them?
I have a couple of answers for you, but one of them is that Disney was it was very scrupulous about obtaining a protective order in which pretty much anything that Disney said was proprietary or confidential or this trade secret would have to be filed under seal, so not accessible to the public.
So then I thought, well, I'll just go to the top. I emailed the CEO of Disney himself, the redoubtable Bob Eiger, Hi Bob, Happy New Year. I have become obsessed with Utopia too, and the question of whether the movie is an encoded apology to Gary Goldman, It's maybe my favorite Hollywood story ever, and as you may know, Gary Goldman is in interpreting the film's hidden message as an act
of graciousness on Disney's part. Would you ever consider talking about this for my podcast, even five minutes, even if you just want to say something brief and funny. I just saw it with my four year old. Anyway, I know this is a long shot, but thought you might enjoy a little distraction from your day. M He writes back. First of all, great to hear from you, and the picture of you with a four year old makes me smile.
Kids are truly life changers and blessings, aren't they. Then he goes on regarding Zutopia and Gary, I am sorry to tell you I cannot comment. I should say Bob Eiger is an incredibly kind and gracious man, and there is a version of this story where he is the hero, the greatest of all heroes, the kind you can never publicly acknowledge their courageous act. There is also a version where he was the victim of a crime so perfect that he can never bring the offender to justice. We
will get there, I promise. Okay, would anyone else talk? I called up Hollywood big shots, moguls. No one would go in the record, don't use this, or you can use this, but don't use my name like this guy.
I'm not sure why they did it, to be honest with you, Yeah, because like that's so on the nose and it's such a bleep you if you pardon my French.
I mean, I didn't know they were that bull.
To be honest with it, I kind of laugh about it.
I think it's funny.
It's funny, but it's hysterical.
But here's the truth.
You rarely poke talent in the eye, you know what I mean.
Yeah, So I don't know how the lawsuit ended, but I would guess this is a.
Little bitterness because people don't lose.
Well, right, so.
I just find it wildly bizarrely.
It's too good.
It's too good, I kept going Mogul upon Mogul, Hi retacted. I'm doing a very strange and hilarious story about Disney and Zutopia too, and wanted to talk to you about it. The Moga writes back, nice to connect. I would talk to you about anything except Disney. I respond, I totally understand. Rejected, but I appreciate you getting back to me. I suspect that you will at least be amused by what we
end up doing. It's a story about how the script for Zutopia two never should have gotten past Disney Legal. Moga writes back, not surprised, good luck on the matter of Gary de Snake and Zutopia two. There is nothing but silence from the powers that be. We have been left to our own devices, and there is nothing in the world more exciting on a story as strange as
this than being left to our own devices. Next week, on Revision's History Part two, we venture a bold theory about what exactly happened behind the closed doors of the Walt Disney Corporation. Revisionous History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Adaff Haffrey. Our editor is Karen Schakerji fact checking by Sam Russick. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, original music by
Luis Kira, Sound design and mastering by Marcelo di'elivera. I'm Malcolm Glavo