There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Starting next month, the path to hearing small children everywhere sing something that’s not “Let It Go” will have begun with word making the rounds that FROZEN 2 is set to go into production.
In an interview with Collider to promote her latest film THE BOSS, Kristen Bell remarked that things were nearly ready to go for the cast to start recording some lines and begin the process of crafting the sequel to the modern Disney classic.
They’ve just written it and they’re still doing tweaks, but I think we should be recording this month. The story is great, and they exude quality. What I know about that whole team is that they wouldn’t just put something out to put it out. That’s why it took them so long to even announce that we were doing a second one. Generally when you have a first successful movie you want to make a second one. It took them a while because they wanted to figure out what story they needed to tell and what would be important and engaging and I think they found it.
Now we all know The Mouse has wanted a piece of that sweet sequel action since the first film became a monumental hit, pulling in over a billion dollars worldwide at the box office and thus ranking it as the highest-grossing animated film of all-time. They’re in the midst of revamping a whole country in the World Showcase at EPCOT at Walt Disney World in the hopes of tapping into some new FROZEN fandom bucks. After initially being unprepared for how audiences would respond to the film, it’s been a nonstop flow of FROZEN merch to milk every last cent they could out of this property. They want to open up a new revenue stream for their bottom lines across the board.
And, as Bell says, that second film is generally something the studio wants to make when the first film does well, but the thing FROZEN 2 seems to have on its side is time. This wasn’t a project that was rushed into being made, because money money money money money. This is something that was allowed to simmer and organically grow in order to make a solid sequel and not just a brand-damaging cash grab. Therefore, if that time was put to good use and something good was the result of this long slow boil, then Disney’s got something special again on their hands.