• Disney announces Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia sequels
• The original Frozen movie was a result of years of development and rewriting, and was the highest-grossing animated movie of all time with $1.45 billion in earnings
• There were many changes and challenges in the development of the characters and storyline for Frozen, including the original plan for Elsa to be a villain and the creation of the character Olaf.
Here is what happened:
Disney recently announced the development of a third and fourth Frozen sequel. Frozen, a film based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Snow Queen, debuted in 2013 and has gained widespread success. The movie’s evolution was a slow process, and it was initially supposed to be titled The Snow Queen. Following Tangled’s box office triumph, Frozen finally came to fruition in 2011. The movie wasn’t commissioned until 2011, as Jennifer Lee was named co-director. In the early version of the project, Elsa was actually the villain of the story inspired by Bette Midler. The hardest character aside from Elsa to figure out was Olaf, who turned from a snowman guard to a hit character once Josh Gad was cast.
These developments led to an iconic film filled with plot twists. For instance, Anna’s “Wait what?” catchphrase was an ad-lib by Kristen Bell. The scene in which Elsa walks out onto her new palace balcony took over 132 hours to render. After a few of the first songs they originally composed for the film didn’t make it in, songwriting couple Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez were inspired to write “Let It Go” after walking in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. After hearing the song “Let it Go” for the first time, co-director Lee said she knew they had to rework the character of Elsa and her motivations completely.
