Frozen 2010 Dan

[Curtis Cassel]

Frozenis a 2013 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures.[8] Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's 1844 fairy tale "The Snow Queen",[1] it was directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee (in her feature directorial debut) and produced by Peter Del Vecho, from a screenplay by Lee, who also conceived the film's story with Buck and Shane Morris.

The film stars the voices of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad and Santino Fontana, with Alan Tudyk, Ciarn Hinds, Maia Wilson, Chris Williams, Stephen J. Anderson, Paul Briggs, Livvy Stubenrauch, Eva Bella, Maurice LaMarche, and Lee in supporting roles. The film follows Anna, the princess of Arendelle, who sets off on a journey with the iceman Kristoff, his reindeer Sven, and the snowman Olaf to find her estranged sister Elsa, whose icy powers have trapped their kingdom in eternal winter.

Frozen underwent several story treatments before it was commissioned in 2011. Christophe Beck was hired to compose the film's orchestral score, and Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote the songs.

After its world premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 19, 2013, Frozen had its general theatrical release on November 27. It was praised for its visuals, screenplay, themes, music, and voice acting, and some critics consider Frozen Disney's best animated film since the studio's Renaissance era, and grossed over $1.280 billion in worldwide box-office revenue, becoming the highest-grossing animated film until the remake of The Lion King overtook the position in August 2019.[9][10] It finished its theatrical run as the highest-grossing film of 2013 and the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time. The film's songs, characters, storytelling elements, and appeal to a general audience were called a popular culture phenomenon. By January 2015, its Blu-ray home video sales led the US. The film's popularity spawned a franchise which includes an animated short in 2015, a 2017 animated featurette and a feature-length sequel, Frozen II, in November 2019.Among its accolades, it won Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song, the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, and two Grammy Awards.

Princess Elsa of Arendelle has magical powers of ice and snow. After she accidentally injures her younger sister Anna with her magic, their parents bring them to a colony of trolls led by Grand Pabbie. He heals Anna by taking away her memories of Elsa's magic. The king and queen decide that until Elsa learns to control her powers, they will close the castle gates and isolate her. Years of isolation creates a rift between the sisters and, when they are adults, their parents are killed at sea.

On Elsa's coronation day, the castle gates open to the public for the first time. Visiting dignitaries include the handsome Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. Hans proposes to Anna, but Elsa objects to the alliance and lashes out, accidentally revealing her powers to the terrified court. Accused of witchcraft by the scheming Duke of Weselton, Elsa flees to the North Mountain and feels free for the first time. She builds an ice palace and decides to live a hermit's life, unaware that her magic has plunged Arendelle into an eternal winter.

Anna ventures out to find Elsa, leaving Hans in command. She meets an iceman named Kristoff and his reindeer, Sven, and convinces them to bring her to the North Mountain. On the way they meet Olaf, a living snowman created by Elsa's magic. At the ice palace, Anna tells Elsa about what has become of Arendelle. Elsa's fear makes her hit Anna with ice, accidentally freezing her heart. In desperation, Elsa creates a giant snow monster and casts Anna out of the castle to keep her safe.

With Anna slowly freezing to death, Kristoff takes her to the trolls for help. Grand Pabbie says that only "an act of true love" can thaw her heart. Kristoff races back to the castle so Hans can give Anna true love's kiss. Meanwhile, Hans captures Elsa. Instead of kissing Anna, he says that he has been plotting to become ruler of Arendelle by marrying Anna and then killing both sisters. The sisters escape and Olaf helps Anna reunite with Kristoff, whom he has deduced is in love with Anna.

Hans confronts Elsa, saying that she has killed Anna. Elsa breaks down, which abruptly stops the blizzard she created. Seeing Hans about to kill Elsa, Anna sacrifices her chance to be saved by Kristoff and steps between Elsa and Hans. She freezes solid, which devastates Elsa. As she hugs her sister, Anna slowly thaws; her heroism is "an act of true love".

Realizing that love is the key to controlling her powers, Elsa ends the winter. Hans is arrested and exiled for treason and attempted assassination. Elsa appoints Kristoff the royal ice deliverer, and he and Anna share a kiss. The sisters mend their relationship, and Elsa promises never to lock the castle gates again.

Hans Christian Andersen's original version of The Snow Queen is a pretty dark tale and it doesn't translate easily into a film. For us the breakthrough came when we tried to give really human qualities to the Snow Queen. When we decided to make the Snow Queen Elsa and our protagonist Anna sisters, that gave a way to relate to the characters in a way that conveyed what each was going through and that would relate for today's audiences. This film has a lot of complicated characters and complicated relationships in it. There are times when Elsa does villainous things but because you understand where it comes from, from this desire to defend herself, you can always relate to her. "Inspired by" means exactly that. There is snow and there is ice and there is a Queen, but other than that, we depart from it quite a bit. We do try to bring scope and the scale that you would expect but do it in a way that we can understand the characters and relate to them.

One of the main challenges Buck and Del Vecho faced after Disney placed The Snow Queen into development again was the title character, who was a villain in their drafts.[42] The studio traditionally screens animated films in development every twelve weeks, followed by holding lengthy "notes sessions" in which directors and screenwriters from different projects provide extensive "notes" about each other's work.[57][58][59]

Buck and Del Vecho presented their storyboards to Lasseter, and the production team adjourned to a conference room to hear his thoughts about the project.[42] Art director Michael Giaimo later called Lasseter the film's "game changer": "I remember John saying that the latest version of The Snow Queen story that Chris Buck and his team had come up with was fun, very light-hearted. But the characters didn't resonate. They aren't multi-faceted. Which is why John felt that audiences wouldn't really be able to connect with them."[42]

A breakthrough was the song "Let It Go" by Lopez and Anderson-Lopez, which reimagined Elsa as a more complex, vulnerable, and sympathetic character.[60] According to a story in The Daily Telegraph, the songwriters saw Elsa not as a villain but as "a scared girl struggling to control and come to terms with her gift".[66] "Bobby and Kristen ... started talking about what would it feel like [to be Elsa]", Lee said. "And this concept of letting out who she is[,] that she's kept to herself for so long[,] and she's alone and free, but then the sadness of the fact [sic] that the last moment is she's alone".[64] Del Vecho said that "Let It Go" changed Elsa into a person "ruled by fear and Anna was ruled by her own love of other people and her own drive"; this caused Lee to "rewrite the first act and then that rippled through the entire movie. So that was when we really found the movie and who these characters were".[59]

Another breakthrough was developing the plot twist that Prince Hans, absent from the first drafts, would be revealed as the true villain near the end.[59] Del Vecho said, "if we were going to make the ending so surprising[,] you had to believe at one point that Hans was the answer ... [when] he's not the answer, it's Kristoff ... [I]f you can get the audience to leap ahead and think they have figured it out[,] you can surprise them by turning it the other way".[59] According to Lee, Hans was written as "sociopathic" and "twisted":[64] "It was difficult to lay the foundation for Anna's belated turn to Kristoff without also making Hans' betrayal of Anna too predictable, in that the audience had to "feel ... her feeling something but not quite understanding it ... Because the minute it is [understood,] it deflated."[64] In earlier drafts, Anna flirted with Kristoff at their first meeting; that was changed after Walt Disney Studios chair Alan Horn said that it would confuse and annoy viewers, since Anna was already engaged to Hans.[67]

With Lee's extensive involvement in the development process,[43] she was promoted to co-director by studio heads Lasseter and Catmull in August 2012.[57][70] Her promotion was announced that November,[71] making her the first woman to direct a full-length animated film from Walt Disney Animation Studios.[43][59][60] Lee later said that she was "really moved by a lot of what Chris had done" and they "shared a vision" of the story, having "very similar sensibilities".[57]

Kristen Bell was cast as the voice of Anna on March 5, 2012.[26][56] The filmmakers listened to a series of vocal tracks Bell recorded when she was young in which she performed songs from The Little Mermaid, including "Part of Your World".[76] Bell completed her Frozen recording sessions while she was pregnant and rerecorded some lines after her pregnancy, when her voice had deepened.[77] She was called in to re-record dialogue for the film "probably 20 times," which is normal for lead roles in Disney animated films whose scripts are evolving.[78] About her approach to the role of Anna, Bell said that she had "dreamed of being in a Disney animated film" since she was four years old;[26] "I always loved Disney animation, but there was something about the females that was unattainable to me. Their posture was too good and they were too well-spoken, and I feel like I really made this girl much more relatable and weirder and scrappier and more excitable and awkward. I'm really proud of that."[79]

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