Frozen 2: the plot, the songs and everything else you need to know about the sequel
What a time to be alive! Well, unless you are the hapless parent of one of the millions of children still obsessed with Anna, Elsa and anything and everything Frozen.
The countdown for the sequel to the inescapable Disney juggernaut officially begins.
Despite attempts to placate Frozen fans with new content (and milk the franchise with blatant cash grabs) in the form of short films Frozen Fever (2015) and Olaf’s Frozen Adventure (2017), only when Frozen 2 arrives in cinemas will they be satisfied.
The approaching release has lead to dribs and drabs of official information and confirmations being released.
Here is everything we know officially about the sequel:
Frozen 2 will be released in 2019
Mark the date desperate parents; in November 2018, Variety reported that Disney will release the sequel earlier than expected, bumping up the release to November 22, 2019.
Frozen 2 teaser trailer
In February Disney released a teaser trailer which features Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Olaf attempting to find out the truth about an ancient mystery of their kingdom. Producer Peter Del Vecho has said the film will build upon the first, answering questions (such as what the heck is troll magic!?) audience had in the first film, while a popular fan theory is that Elsa is gay and will get a girlfriend in Frozen 2.
Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel and Josh Gad are set to voice their iconic characters, with new additions to the cast
Bell and Menzel will return to voice and sing (for surely massive paychecks) as the Arendelle princesses Elsa and Anna, with Josh Gad (for an equally enormous paycheck) returning as Olaf, the squeaky-voiced anthropomorphic snowman who haunts the dreams of parents worldwide.
Jonathan Groff, who voices Anna’s sturdy iceman Kristoff, also returns.
But wait, there’s more: Westworld actress Evan Rachel Wood and This Is Us actor Sterling K Brown are believed to be joining the cast of Frozen 2.
It’s thought that Wood will play the auburn-haired character shown briefly in the forest during the teaser trailer. Fans are wondering whether this mystery woman could be Elsa’s love interest, and Bell is keeping everyone guessing.
Elsa and Anna will travel beyond the borders of Arendelle
That Elsa no longer feels the need to conceal, don’t feel and stay sequestered in her room, has suggested the possibility of the sisters travelling beyond their country’s borders.
Lee suggested that the focus of Frozen 2 will be on Elsa and Anna, and that “they’re going to go far out of Arendelle,” and will be “bigger, more epic” than the first film.
The film teaser implied that the sisters will be exploring new pastures in Frozen 2. Elsa, whose magical power is creating ice, is seen running, messiah-like, into the ocean, and attempting to climb the waves.
The sisters, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven are also shown looking out on new world, full of warm, autumn hues. The deep red trees and tumbling orange leaves are a far cry from the white, crystalline world of the first Frozen film.
Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck are back to direct, joined by screenwriter Allison Schroeder
The directorial duo, who won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature for Frozen, have returned to direct the sequel. Schroeder, who wrote the screenplay for Universal’s Hidden Figures and Disney’s Christopher Robin, will co-write Frozen 2’s script with Lee.
Frozen 2 will be chock-full of new songs – but will anything top Let it Go?
The married duo behind Frozen’s songs, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, took home the Best Original Song Oscar for Let It Go. No wonder they’ve returned to create Frozen 2’s music. Christophe Beck, Frozen’s composer, has also made a comeback.
Both the Lopezes and Beck created new music and songs for the short film Frozen Fever and the Broadway musical adaptation of Frozen, so it wasn’t a stretch to assume they would be back for Frozen 2.
Lee confirmed on November 1 that the Lopezes have written four songs, one of which has the potential to surpass Let it Go.
“We have a new song that I think is an evolution,” said Lee. “It’s its own song… Bobby [Lopez] and Kristen [Anderson-Lopez] just delivered it three weeks ago. We’ve been working with them for two years and this song just came in and I love it.”
Telegraph film critics Robbie Collin and Tim Robey are in agreement that Disney has a potential battle on its hands in making a successful musical sequel. However, the success of Ralph Breaks the Internet, Disney’s most successful animated sequel sans inflation, shows there is an appetite for official Disney sequels.
“I think they’ll definitely try to position one song as a Let It Go-trumping central number,” said Robey. “At a guess, though, it might be a duet between the sisters. They only shared about four scenes in the first film, so I feel more detailed development of that relationship has got to be the way to go.”
Collin added: “I suspect what they might do is either give the big showstopping number to Anna, or (more likely, I think) to have both sisters sing it together. That way they can draw on the broad themes that made the original film so popular, but explore them in a completely new context.”
Disney is taking their sweet time with Frozen 2 in order to make it absolutely perfect
In 2016, Bell explained that the only reason the film is taking so long is because Disney are handling it with care. Speaking to Collider, she revealed: “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.”
The head honchos at Disney seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet. The franchise producer Peter Del Vecho said back in March 2017: “We’re in the development writing process and are very excited by it. Like all movies, it will evolve.”
“Now that we’ve been involved in it for a while, what’s exciting is it feels like it builds on the first movie. You understand things better in the first movie after you’ve seen the sequel.”
In 2018, Bell revealed that she’d finished recording her parts for the movie. She said: “You know I can’t say a lot because Disney have people everywhere but I have recorded the movie. There will be edits before it’s finished. I know the songs, I know the story, it’s very good. I can’t say much more than that.”