Frozen director shares exciting update on upcoming third installment
It's not like families all over the world need to be more excited for the third Frozen movie, but this is sounding pretty good.
During the year-end earnings call of February 2023, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced a number of sequels to the company's biggest animated heavy hitters, including Toy Story 5, Zootopia 2, and Frozen 3. After a slump that's been going for too long, the company is doubling down on safe IPs that have proven absurdly valuable in the past. The third Frozen installment specifically doesn't come as a surprise, given it's still the second most profitable animated movie of all time with $1.4 billion, only behind 2019's The Lion King remake.
Now, Frozen 1 and 2 director Jennifer Lee is already teasing what she and her team are beginning to cook behind the scenes. The news (via Variety) arrived during a Spotlight conversation at the BFI London Film Festival last week. She started off by saying she was "blown away" by the creative team's work so far, but it appears she still hasn't figured out what her definitive role is yet. Even though she co-directed and wrote the two previous movies and seems pretty involved so far in the creative process for the threequel, she could always give the captain's seat to someone else.
Some fans are afraid that putting out too many Frozen installments too fast might dilute what the original movie said about its main characters, Elsa and Anna, but Lee seems confident in the possibilities they haven't explored yet. She elaborated on this: "Our philosophy is this, and it won’t change: If there is more story to tell, the filmmakers have to drive it. And I’ll say with Frozen, Marc Smith, who was our director of story on Frozen 2, came with an incredible idea for more Frozen, and it’s worth it." Of course, even if Lee and her closest collaborators jumped ship, we'd fully expect Disney to march onwards with more movies, but it's good to know she's still convinced about the potential of future stories set in that world.
Last but not least, she used some of her time to praise Chris Pine's performance in Wish, the upcoming animated musical that she co-wrote for Disney after working on Frozen 2. We were already pretty huge Chris Pine fans, but his standout performance earlier this year in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves convinced us he's really to rock out outside his comfort zone in big movies, so bring it on!
