Credit: DisneyIf Disney has had a single, uncontested hit in the last decade, it is unquestionably the Frozen franchise. Unsurprisingly, the House of Mouse is celebrating the snow-covered series’ tenth anniversary with a series of events and collaborations, and it seems extremely likely that a new movie is going to be its crowning announcement.
Frozen was first released in theaters on November 27, 2013, and featured Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff, and Santino Fontana. After years of halting development and story treatments, the Snow Queen-based movie became a huge cross-cultural hit, and, to honor that, the Walt Disney Company is really letting out all the stops.
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According to a release from the company, “In honor of the film’s 10th anniversary, Disney is launching a 10-week countdown celebration with collaborations across the company. From Disney Parks and consumer products to music and community outreach, the Frozen fun is crystalizing in new and exciting ways. Over the next 10 weeks, fans of the film will enjoy surprise and delight announcements, content, and more.”
Disney kicked things off by releasing a short promo video featuring scenes from the Frozen franchise to date.
The original Frozen movie grossed an astonishing $1.285 billion during its original theatrical run and has been re-released several times, including in a “sing-along.” It also overtook Toy Story 3 (2010) as the highest-grossing animated film of all time until it was itself defeated by Disney’s own live-action CGI remake of The Lion King (2019).
That alone would have made Frozen one of the crown jewels in Disney’s modern slate of films. However, the House of Mouse did not hesitate to capitalize on the success of Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee’s movie, not to mention the iconic songs of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.
So far, we have had one sequel, Frozen 2 (2019), numerous short films and television specials, a critically acclaimed Broadway musical, and soon, an entire area devoted to the franchise at Disneyland.
Oddly, the future of the series has been somewhat up in the air for several years now, with Disney giving no indication of any concrete plans for a second Frozen sequel. While CEO Bob Iger has stated that the company plans on more feature films, you would think that all of Disney’s well-publicized issues would make it more interested in going back to its most dependable well.
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So far, Disney has not given many specifications about what the “collaborations” and announcements for the Frozen 10-Year Anniversary will involve, but it does seem like it would be the ideal time to announce a new sequel.
With box office grosses for Disney, Pixar, and Marvel movies all spiraling and a live-action Little Mermaid not even being enough to right the ship, this definitely feels like Frozen 3 might finally be rushed into production.
Do you think Disney is actually working on Frozen 3? Could it save the struggling company? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!