‘It’s Tough to Be a Bug’ closing March 17 at Disney’s Animal Kingdom
The “It’s Tough to be a Bug” closing date is set for at Disney’s Animal Kingdom on March 17, 2025, to be replaced by a “Zootopia” attraction.
Updated Feb. 3, 2025; original version published Dec. 16, 2024.
Walt Disney World will retire “It’s Tough to be a Bug!” — a 3D show based on Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom near Orlando, Fla. — on March 17, 2025. The show’s final operating day will be March 16, 2025. Disney announced the closing date for “It’s Tough to be a Bug” on Feb. 3 via its website (h/t Scott Gustin on X).
As previously announced, come winter 2025 (as in, the end of 2025), “Zootopia: Better Zoogether!” will open as a new 3D show inside the park’s Tree of Life. Notably, “Zootopia 2” will release in theaters in November.
This marks the first time Disney has officially confirmed the closure of “It’s Tough to be a Bug.” In a previous version of this article, we analyzed how Disney had refrained from specifically mentioning “It’s Tough to be a Bug” closing anytime the company shared news of “Better Zoogether” opening, and theorized whether both shows would coexist. Now we know this is not the case, and that the “Bug’s Life” show will indeed close for good.
The closure of “It’s Tough to be a Bug” is one of many farewells this year for a handful of longstanding Disney World attractions as Imagineers prepare for the resort’s future. Elsewhere in Animal Kingdom, Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama! closed at the top of the year. This June, Muppet*Vision 3D will close at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and later this year, Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America will likewise close at Magic Kingdom. Eventually, Animal Kingdom’s Dinosaur and Hollywood Studios’ Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster will both close in their existing iterations, but will remain in the park and rebrand as different experiences.
Looking ahead, these various attractions will be replaced by new experiences inspired by “Monsters, Inc.,” “Encanto,” Indiana Jones, “Cars,” and Disney Villains, many of which Disney announced at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event 2024.
“It’s Tough to be a Bug” is an Opening-Day attraction for Animal Kingdom, having debuted with the park on April 22, 1998 — a full seven months before the release of “A Bug’s Life” in theaters. Now it joins the portfolio of defunct Animal Kingdom attractions. A version of the show also ran at Disney California Adventure, but closed there in 2018 to make way for Avengers Campus.
What’s replacing It’s Tough to be a Bug
In September 2023 at the Destination D23 event, Bruce Vaughn (chief creative officer of Walt Disney Imagineering) first revealed Disney’s plans for “Zootopia” at Animal Kingdom.
I’m happy to share here for the first time that we’re creating a new show for the Tree of Life based on ‘Zootopia.’ Our current concept is filled with humor and action, taking you into the different biomes you see in the film and some you have yet to see. We’ll meet Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde, and my favorite, the fantastic Clawhauser animatronic. It’s gonna be great.
Bruce Vaughn, September 2023
Vaughn shared artwork for that in-progress concept (pictured below), depicting Officer Clawhauser in the same stage-left spot that currently belongs to the Hopper animatronic in “It’s Tough to be a Bug.”
In August 2024 at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, the attraction inside the Tree of Life was formally announced as “Zootopia: Better Zoogether!,” along with a new poster (below). Among a flurry of other announcements, actors Darren Criss and Skylar Astin sang a parody of “Try Everything” from “Zootopia” with new lyrics about spending a day at Animal Kingdom, including seeing “a new show that’s in the tree … next winter.”
An accompanying post on the Disney Parks Blog slightly elaborated, saying, “The newest show coming to the Tree of Life Theater features Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde, and all their friends from Disney Animation’s ‘Zootopia.’ The show, ‘Zootopia: Better Zoogether!’ will take guests on an adventure through different biomes seen in the film and opens next winter.”
Our previous theory debunked: ‘It’s Tough to be a Bug’ and ‘Better Zoogether’ sharing the same theater
Though unusual, the now-debunked theory of shared theater space between two attractions isn’t entirely unprecedented.
In 2020, Epcot debuted the “Beauty and the Beast Sing-Along” film in the France Pavilion, but rather than closing “Impressions de France,” both films now share the same theater space. Guests can consult the My Disney Experience app for the operating hours of both presentations during their visit.
Meanwhile, the return of the original Soarin’ Over California as a seasonal replacement of the newer Soarin’ Around the World has become an annual fixture of Disney California Adventure’s springtime Food & Wine Festival.
Looking ahead, “Walt Disney – A Magical Life” will open on May 16, 2025 at Disneyland Park inside the Opera House on Main Street, U.S.A. In yet another instance of sharing rather than replacing, Disney said that “after its initial run, the attraction will play in rotation with ‘Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln'” rather than permanently eclipse that classic show.
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