Deadline.com reports Disney is melding politics and the politics of the Oscar race by hosting a Zootopia themed debate viewing party tonight in West Hollywood.
Clearly there is box office business to be had by jumping into the political debate, and now many think it can benefit a film’s awards prospects as well. So it shouldn’t be too surprising that there is one movie trying to tie itself directly into tonight’s debate (Deadline will be live-blogging the Clinton-Trump faceoff). But who knew it would come from Disney? The studio’s animated smash Zootopia is throwing a debate-watching party tonight at the Sunset Tower. The filmmakers won’t be on hand campaigning, I’m told, but Disney has invited members of different awards groups including the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Hollywood Foreign Press Assocaition to join in the festivities. The invite — which features a donkey character from the film dressed up as Clinton (repping the Democrats) and an elephant dressed as Trump (repping the GOP) — quotes political strategist Mike Murphy predicting of the debate that “It’s going to be a zoo!”