Why GOAT will look different from other animated movies
Disney’s hugely successful Zootopia 2 might be the GOAT of western animated movies in terms of sales, but Sony Pictures Animation is hoping to butt in on the anthropomorphic animal action this month with an actual caprine ruminant as the main star.
The movie highlights the differences between Sony’s and Disney’s approaches to animation. While Zootopia 2 had hyper-realistic fur, detailed cityscapes and naturalistic lighting, GOAT is an evolution of Sony’s Spider-Verse animation style with a more stylized, comic-book look and a unique visual language that emphasizes the movie’s sporting action.
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Billed as one of the highlights of animation in 2026, GOAT is an animated sports comedy directed by Tyree Dillihay. It tells the story of Will Harris, a goat who gets a shot at the big time in the high-intensity sport of ‘roarball’.
As well as graphic textures, bold outlines and layered shading that will feel familiar to fans of Spider-Verse, the movie uses dynamic camera angles like tracking shots and overhead stadium views plus frame-rate modulation to mirror and exaggerate the feel of real sports broadcasts. This looks set to give the on-court scenes a dramatic sense of spectacle.
In the recent behind-the-scenes video above, motion graphics artist Dylan Casano reveals the use of impact frames for key moments to give the movie its own unique visual language.
Trails were added to reference the look of collectible sports cards, making the frames “more GOAT and more Sony Pictures Animation”. An example shows the bear character Grizz appearing to rip through the screen as if it were a card packet.
As for the character design in GOAT, the Vineland Thorns squad balances cartoonish expressiveness and humor with athletic physiques.
Goat protagonist Will Harris has a clear underdog look reinforced by his small stature and slenderness compared to the other characters. In the Instagram post above, production designer Jang Lee and GOAT character designer Eran Alboher reveal that their design was inspired by three types of real-world goat: Slovenian, Nubian and alpine.
As for Jett Fillmore, the 9ft black leopard voiced by Gabrielle Union, the character’s face was built using multiple diamond shapes, simplifying forms from the natural world with sharp diagonals to create a sense of fierce agility.
Jang and Eran also reveal that Modo’s design was inspired by the long-extinct T-Rex as well as Komodo dragons, while Olivia the ostrich was originally going to be an alpaca.
KPop Demon Hunters has already boosted Sony’s animation credentials even if the company passed the movie on to Netflix (the Best Animated Feature Oscar looks like a battle of KPop Demon Hunters vs Zootopia 2). GOAT will now show if it can shine at the box office beyond the Spider Verse.
The movie will be released on February 12 or 13, 2026, depending on where you are.
Inspired? See our guides to the best animation software and the best laptops for animation.
