Frozen II

***Frozen II*** is a 2019 American computer-animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The 58th animated film produced by the studio, it is the sequel to the 2013 film *Frozen*. Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee from a screenplay by Lee, produced by Peter Del Vecho, and executive-produced by Byron Howard, the film stars Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, and Jonathan Groff. Set three years after the events of the first film, the story follows Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven, who embark on a journey beyond their kingdom of Arendelle in order to discover the origin of Elsa's magical powers and save their kingdom after a mysterious voice calls out to Elsa.

*Frozen II* premiered in Los Angeles on November 7, 2019, and was released in the United States on November 22. The film received generally positive reviews from critics with praise for its animation, soundtrack, score, and voice acting, but criticism for its story and tone. It grossed $1.45 billion worldwide, making it the third highest-grossing film of 2019, the 10th highest-grossing film of all time, and the second highest-grossing animated film of all timeduring its theatrical run, where the film became the highest all-time worldwide opening for an animated film. The film won two Annie Awards for Outstanding Achievement for Animated Effects in an Animated Production and Outstanding Achievement for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production and a Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature, and at the 92nd Academy Awards, the film received a nomination for Best Original Song for "Into the Unknown".

# Plot

King Agnarr of Arendelle tells a story to his young daughters, Elsa and Anna, about their grandfather, King Runeard, establishing a treaty with a neighboring tribe of Northuldra by building a dam in their homeland, the Enchanted Forest. However, a fight occurs, resulting in Runeard's death and enraging the elemental spirits of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air of the forest. The spirits disappear and a wall of mist traps everyone in the Enchanted Forest. Young Agnarr barely escapes due to the help of an unknown savior.

Three years after her coronation, Elsa celebrates autumn in the kingdom with Anna, Olaf the snowman, Kristoff the ice harvester, and Kristoff's reindeer Sven. One night, when Elsa hears a mysterious voice calling out to her, she follows it and unintentionally awakens the elemental spirits, which forces everyone in the kingdom to evacuate. Grand Pabbie and the Rock Troll colony arrive and Pabbie informs them that they must set things right by discovering the truth about the past. Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven embark to the Enchanted Forest, following the mysterious voice. After the mist parts at Elsa's touch, the Air spirit, in the form of a tornado, appears and sweeps everyone in its vortex. Elsa stops it, forming a set of ice sculptures. The sisters discover the sculptures are images from their father's past. They encounter the Northuldra and a troop of Arendellian soldiers who are still in conflict with one another. When the Fire spirit appears, Elsa discovers the spirit to be an agitated magical salamander and calms it down. Elsa and Anna arrange a truce between the soldiers and the Northuldra after discovering that their mother, Queen Iduna, was a Northuldran who had saved Agnarr, an Arendellian. They later learn the existence of a fifth spirit who will unite the people with the magic of nature.

Elsa, Anna, and Olaf continue to head north, leaving Kristoff and Sven behind. They find their parents' wrecked ship and a map with a route to Ahtohallan, a mythical river told by their mother to contain all explanations of the past. Elsa sends Anna and Olaf away to safety and continues alone. She encounters and tames the Nøkk, the Water spirit who guards the sea to Ahtohallan. Reaching Ahtohallan, a glacier, Elsa discovers that the voice calling to her was the memory of young Iduna's call; that her powers were a gift from nature because of Iduna's selfless act of saving Agnarr and that Elsa herself is the fifth spirit. Elsa learns that the dam was built as a ruse to reduce the Northuldra's resources because of King Runeard's contempt of the tribe's connection with magic and his intention to wipe them out and incorporate the region into the kingdom. She then learns Runeard was the one who initiated the conflict by killing the unarmed Northuldra leader in cold blood. Elsa sends this information to Anna before becoming frozen due to venturing into the most dangerous part of Ahtohallan. This in turn causes Olaf to fade away.

Anna concludes that the dam must be destroyed for peace to be restored. Anna finds and awakens the gigantic Earth spirits and lures them towards the dam. The giants hurl boulders aimed at Anna which destroy the dam, sending a flood down the fjord towards the kingdom. Elsa thaws out and returns to Arendelle, diverting the flood and saving the kingdom. As the mist disappears, Elsa reunites with Anna and revives Olaf, and Anna accepts Kristoff's marriage proposal. Elsa explains that she and Anna are the bridge between the people and the magical spirits. Afterwards, Anna becomes the new Queen of Arendelle while Elsa becomes the protector of the Enchanted Forest who regularly visits Arendelle as peace has been restored.

In a post-credits scene, Olaf visits Elsa's ice palace and recounts the events he experienced to Marshmallow and the Snowgies.

# Cast

* Kristen Bell as Anna, Princess of Arendelle and Elsa's younger sister
	+ Hadley Gannaway and Livvy Stubenrauch (archived sound) as young Anna
* Idina Menzel as Elsa, Queen of Arendelle and Anna's elder sister who possesses magical ice powers
	+ Mattea Conforti and Eva Bella (archived sound) as young Elsa
* Josh Gad as Olaf, a sentient snowman created by Elsa's magic
* Jonathan Groff as Kristoff, an ice harvester and Anna's boyfriend
	+ Groff also provides the voices of Sven and the reindeer.
* Sterling K. Brown as Mattias, the leader of a group of Arendelle soldiers who were trapped in the enchanted forest for over thirty years.
* Evan Rachel Wood as Iduna, the mother of Elsa and Anna, and wife of Agnarr. Wood was cast because her warm voice sounds a little bit like the voices of both Menzel and Bell, but also sounds different from both of them. Director Lee previously voiced Iduna's single line in the first film.
	+ Delaney Rose Stein as young Iduna
* Alfred Molina as Agnarr, the father of Elsa and Anna and husband of Iduna. He was previously voiced by Maurice LaMarche in the first film.
	+ Jackson Stein as young Agnarr
* Martha Plimpton as Yelena, leader of the Northuldra tribe.
* Jason Ritter as Ryder, a member of the Northuldra, Honeymaren's brother who shares Kristoff's love for reindeer.
* Rachel Matthews as Honeymaren, a member of the Northuldra, Ryder's sister who wants to bring peace to the enchanted forest.
* Jeremy Sisto as Runeard, Agnarr's father and the grandfather of Elsa and Anna.
* Ciarán Hinds as Pabbie, the leader of the Rock Trolls.
* Aurora as The Voice, the call from the memory of the Young Iduna to lead Elsa to Ahtohallan. The Voice's 4-note call is derived from the Latin sequence *Dies irae*, but is delivered in a manner inspired by the Scandinavian music form kulning.

Additionally, Alan Tudyk provides voices to a Guard, a Northuldra Leader, and an Arendellian Soldier. Archive sounds are used in the Ahtohallan scene for Tudyk as the Duke of Weselton and Santino Fontana as Hans, a Prince from the Southern Isles who tried to take over Arendelle. Paul Briggs also briefly reprises his role in the film's post-credits scene as Marshmallow, a giant snow monster created by Elsa.

# Production

### **Development**

In March 2014, when asked about sequels to the first film, producer Peter Del Vecho said that Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and he "work very, very well together, so I believe we will be developing a new project. But I don't know what that is right now." In late April of that year, Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan F. Horn stated that a sequel was not being seriously considered because at that time the studio's priority was the planned Broadway musical, which also required additional songs to be written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

When asked in May 2014 about a sequel, Disney CEO Bob Iger told host David Faber that Disney would not "mandate a sequel" or "force storytelling", because to do so would risk creating something not as good as the first film. Iger also expressed the hope that the *Frozen* franchise "is something that is kind of forever for the company" similar to *The Lion King*.

In June, Lee confirmed that then-chief creative officer John Lasseter had expressly granted her and Buck the freedom to explore whatever they were "passionate about": "We don't know what it is yet ... We're actually going to start from scratch. It'll be something completely brand new." Years later, Lee and Buck revealed that they really had begun development of an entirely new film unrelated to *Frozen*. But during the fall of 2014, while working on the short film *Frozen Fever*, they realized how much they missed the characters. In the meantime, Del Vecho had been accepting speaking engagements around the world, where fans peppered him with questions left unanswered by the first film. In November 2014, Lee, Buck, and Del Vecho agreed they were not yet ready to leave behind the world of Arendelle, and began to discuss the possibility of a sequel. Buck later explained: "The one thing that we did right away was to figure out what would be satisfying for Anna and Elsa at the end of the movie." They soon arrived at the ending they would spend the next five years trying to "earn": Anna would become queen and Elsa would be free.

On March 12, 2015, at Disney's annual meeting of shareholders in San Francisco, Iger, Lasseter, and actor Josh Gad officially announced a full-length sequel, *Frozen 2*, was in development at Disney, with Buck and Lee returning as directors and Del Vecho returning as producer. Lasseter said that at Disney Animation, "as with Pixar, when we do a sequel, it is because the filmmakers who created the original have created an idea that is so good that it's worthy of these characters." He said that in the case of *Frozen*, the directors had "come up with a great idea for a sequel and you will be hearing a lot more about it, and we're taking you back to Arendelle." According to the *Los Angeles Times*, there was "considerable internal debate" at Disney over whether to proceed with a *Frozen* sequel at Disney Animation, but the unprecedented success of the first film apparently swayed Disney executives towards making a sequel.

In an October 2017 interview with *CinemaBlend*, Bell said that there will be some new characters too, and also said that the directors and the producers went to Norway for their trip, tooking "the entire culture" to make the film. She added that Lee had drafted personal journals for the characters Elsa and Anna by trying and figuring out. From the Scandinavia research trip, the production team derived the important insight that Elsa is a "mythic hero" who possesses the powers of ice and Anna is a "fairytale hero" who did not possess magic. They also realized that what makes the original *Frozen* so powerful is how it combines these two different types of stories.

In March 2018, Lee said in an interview that she was doing the second draft out of six drafts, which she referred as "six screenings". In August 2018, Allison Schroeder, the screenwriter of *Hidden Figures* and Disney's *Christopher Robin*, was hired to assist Lee with writing the film's screenplay after Lee succeeded Lasseter as Disney Animation's chief creative officer. Lee was credited as screenwriter. Schroeder was credited with additional screenplay material.

Meanwhile, Megan Harding, who had previously directed a 2014 making-of ABC television special about *Frozen*, reached out to Disney Animation about whether she could document the production of *Frozen II*. While working on the television special, both Harding and Del Vecho had wished that cameras had been there a year earlier to document the production of *Frozen* (rather than interviewing people talking about the process after the fact). Harding began to travel regularly from her base in New York City to Burbank with camera crews in tow, and ended up shooting 1,300 hours of footage on 115 shooting days from December 2018 through the November 2019 world premiere. According to Harding, Disney Animation provided full cooperation knowing she intended to take a "fearless" and "honest look" at its filmmaking process; her crew was asked to leave the room only once, and that moment (and the reason why) ended up in her documentary. Harding's documentary would later reveal that by December 2018, it had already been firmly established that Elsa was following a mysterious voice, but the production team had not yet resolved the critical question of the identity of The Voice.

The first presentation of completed scenes from the movie was shown at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in June 2019. At the Annecy presentation, head of animation Becky Bresee and head of effects animation Marlon West said that as of mid-June 2019, the film was "still in production, with seven weeks of animation to be completed and 10 weeks of special effects."

Throughout the production of the film, filmmakers collaborated with Sámi experts on the depiction of the fictional Northuldra tribe. An advisory group, Verdett, was formed. This collaboration was the result of an agreement between The Walt Disney Company, the transnational Saami Council, and the Sámi parliaments of Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Additionally, while some fans campaigned for Elsa to receive a female love interest in the film, Anderson-Lopez confirmed that Elsa will have no love interest in the movie. Lee later explained to Maureen Dowd that they had put the characters through Myers-Briggs tests, and "[i]t really came out that Elsa is not ready for a relationship."

During a press conference for the film, Lee confirmed that the sequel would not feature elements from *Once Upon a Time*'s *Frozen* storyline, since she had "made a point of certain things not to see" while developing the film.

### **Casting**

Jonathan Groff said earlier in July 2017, "I don't know anything about it yet other than I'm about to start recording my section of it." On October 11, he confirmed on the British talk show *Lorraine* that he too had started recording for the sequel the previous month. In September 2017, on the interview with *The Arizona Republic*, Idina Menzel confirmed that she would return for her role a couple weeks after completing her concert tour; she said, "they haven't even sent me a script". That same date, Gad announced his role in the sequel with Buck, Lee, Del Vecho, and Lasseter. In July 2018, it was announced that Evan Rachel Wood and Sterling K. Brown had entered talks to join the cast in undisclosed roles.

### **Animation**

The film was produced by a team of approximately 800 people, of whom 80 were animators. Tony Smeed and Becky Bresee together served as the heads of animation on the film. Hyun-Min Lee served as animation supervisor for Anna, while Wayne Unten again served as animation supervisor for Elsa. Before animation began, Unten showed various scenes of superheroes like Frozone to the animators working on Elsa as examples of what not to emulate. Elsa's movements in the sequel were modeled after her graceful movements in the first film, and also drew inspiration from modern dance, especially the work of Martha Graham.

According to co-production designer Lisa Keene, the animators did "a lot of artwork" in order to define the Nøkk design, while Steve Golberg, the film's visual effects supervisor said that the Nøkk's animation required collaborations between several animation departments, artists, and technicians, and said that the time to define the Nøkk's design took at least 8 months of the film's production. The animation team aimed to give the Nøkk a more stable appearance than the ocean as depicted in *Moana*. According to effects supervisor Erin Ramos, the Nøkk's liquid-like appearance was developed by the film's effects team, which he said was "so that [the] Nøkk would feel like a strong and stormy creature". According to Marlon West, the film's head of effects animation, the animators were given "the tools to actually perform with an ultimately invisible rig that resembled a little comet", as well as old key-framing technology, in order to represent the character of Gale. To create the wind spirit Gale a new tool called Swoop was invented. This required that four (and sometimes five) different departments had to cooperate on the animation of the character, with animators working with real-time feedback. The water simulation was made to be more realistic than in *Moana*, but some of the elements in the movie were so realistic that they felt inconsistent next to the characters, and so they had to be made more stylistic. Creating the flurry effect was so difficult for the animators that the directors decided Elsa would have perfected a permafrost coating for Olaf by the second movie.

According to Smeed, the Earth Giants "had a long rigging process" in order for the characters to move without "[seeing] solid rock penetrating solid rock", while Marlon West, the film's head of effects animation, said that the film's effects team had the objective of generating "rocks that would fall out of the joints as they moved", though they had to be careful to avoid making the rocks distracting to the audience. Upon the reveal of the teaser poster, Gad announced that the snowflake on it has "quite a few surprises". In July 2019, American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson raised an issue that "Water crystals have hexagonal “six-fold” symmetry" shown correctly in previous film, but this poster shows four instead. Director Lee, in a reply, said that it is not really a snowflake. Later, it was revealed in film that these four edges represent the four elemental spirits, while its center represents the fifth spirit; Elsa.[*better source needed*]

According to Bell, the animators played pranks on the cast. When she visited Disney Animation to view early versions of her scenes, the animators added audible flatulence to a scene where Anna and Elsa were together in bed, and in another scene where Anna was supposed to jump between cliffs, she did not quite make it. *Frozen II* underwent significant revisions after its first test screening in San Diego. Disney Animation discovered that adults liked the film, but children found it hard to follow. The production team realized they needed to clarify the identity of The Voice as well as the point of Queen Elsa's transformation, add more comedy, and add more shots of Bruni, the fire salamander. There was a scene full of grown-up expository dialogue in which the lead characters explained to the people trapped in the Enchanted Forest why they had come there, which was replaced with Olaf's humorous recap of the first film. Due to these extensive changes, the animators needed to create 61 new shots and redo another 35, while an undisclosed number of shots were cut and left out of the finished film. For example, approximately a dozen animators and artists had labored for two months on a far more elaborate resurrection scene for Olaf, but that scene was cut.

The last major animation sequence completed before the production team locked picture was "Show Yourself," the showstopping musical number in which Elsa enters Ahtohallan and finally learns all the secrets she has been seeking. Del Vecho said that sequence "required all of the resources at the studio" to get the film done on time. Lopez revealed that the first draft of "Show Yourself" was very different from the final version: "[E]veryone loved it, but we had to shape it. When we saw the first round of visuals and then we saw it in the film, everyone agreed changes needed to happen. And it went back and forth for months—it’s now four minutes and 20 seconds and it has a big ending. It transformed a lot, and it was hard." Harding's documentary revealed that the grueling process hinted at in press interviews by Del Vecho and Lopez arose from the difficulty of determining the true identity of The Voice. Once the production team belatedly settled on Queen Iduna, "Show Yourself" finally began to come together, but then the artists, designers, and animators needed to figure out very quickly how to stage the dramatic culmination of Queen Elsa's journey towards becoming the Snow Queen.

### **Music**

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez returned from the first film to write new songs for the sequel, while Christophe Beck returned to compose the film's score. The soundtrack was officially released on November 15, a week before the movie's theatrical release.

Harding also dispatched a camera crew to the Lopezes' studio in Brooklyn to try to document their songwriting/composing process, but the Lopezes found that having camera operators watching them disrupted their creativity and ended up doing most of that work off-camera.

# Marketing

Disney released the first teaser trailer for the film on February 13, 2019. The teaser trailer was viewed 116.4 million times in its first 24 hours, becoming the second most viewed animated film trailer in that time period, surpassing the record of *Incredibles 2* (113.6 million views).

Disney partnered with 140 brands worldwide to promote *Frozen 2*, the highest number ever for any Disney animated film. In the U.S. market, Disney heavily marketed the film through a variety of internal and external partners. Disney's marketing partners deployed approximately "250 million touchpoints" (i.e., branded objects) into the U.S. retail sector in preparation for the film's release. To support the film's massive marketing campaign, the lead cast members made numerous appearances in public and on many television shows. During the month of November, the lead cast members' schedules were so jam-packed with appearances that in Bell's words, "[w]e flew on a helicopter to Disneyland because time is, it's not there."

# Release

### **Theatrical**

The film had its world premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on November 7, 2019, and was released in the United States on November 22. It was previously set for November 27. On January 17, 2020, a sing-along re-issue was released.

### **Localization**

*Frozen 2* was localized through Disney Character Voices International into 46 languages by its original theater release, four more than the first chapter of the franchise, originally issued in 42 languages. Following upon the success of localized versions of the first film, which led to the release of a complete set album featuring all the official versions of "Let It Go" released at the time, as well as special dubbings released for the movie *Moana*, which gathered in the space of two years from its release a Tahitian, a Māori, and a Hawaiian version, a special Northern Sami dubbing was released for *Frozen 2* with the title *Jikŋon 2*.

### **Home media**

*Frozen II* was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on digital HD and 4K on February 11, 2020, followed by an Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD release on February 25.

It was initially announced that the film would be released on Disney+ on June 26, 2020. However, on March 13, 2020, Disney announced that amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the film would be released on Disney+ three months earlier than originally announced. It was made available on Disney+ on March 15, 2020 in the United States, and on March 17, 2020 in Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand.

### **Documentary series**

On April 11, 2019, it was announced that a companion documentary series would be launched on the Disney+ streaming service within its first year entitled *Into the Unknown: Making Frozen II*. On June 26, 2020, the documentary series became available for streaming on Disney+. To create the series, Harding winnowed down 1,300 hours of footage to six episodes of approximately 35 to 45 minutes in length.

# Reception

### **Box office**

*Frozen II* grossed $477.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $972.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1.450 billion. *Deadline Hollywood* calculated the net profit of the film to be $599 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. According to Disney (who does not consіder the 2019 *The Lion King* remake to be an anіmated fіlm), *Frozen II* is the hіghest-grossing anіmated fіlm, surpassing the first *Frozen*.

In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside *A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood* and *21 Bridges*, and was projected to gross anywhere from $90–135 million from 4,440 theaters in its opening weekend. On its opening weekend, the film was presented in 2,500 3D theaters, 400 IMAX theaters, 800 premium large format screens, and 235 D-Box/4D enhanced theaters. It earned $42.2 million on its first day, including $8.5 million from Thursday previews, a record for an animated film in November. It went on to debut to $130.3 million, the highest opening for an animated film in the month and fifth-best overall. In its second weekend the film grossed $85.6 million (including a record $126.3 million over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend), remaining in first.

In other territories, the film grossed $228.2 million during the opening weekend from 37 overseas markets for a global debut total of $358.5 million, the highest ever for an animated title, surpassing the 2019 *The Lion King* remake. Notable figures included landing the best opening of all-time for an animated pic in the United Kingdom ($17.8 million) and France ($13.4 million), the biggest start ever for a Pixar or Disney Animation title in China ($53 million), Japan ($18.2 million), Germany ($14.9 million) and Spain ($5.8 million), and the third-biggest industry opening of any film in South Korea ($31.5 million). In its second weekend in the United Kingdom, the film brought $11.4 million, bringing its total gross there to $35.3 million. As of February 16, 2020, the film's highest grossing international markets were China ($122.3 million), Japan ($121.2 million), South Korea ($97.3 million), United Kingdom ($69.4 million), Germany ($60.1 million), France ($57.3 million).

### **Critical response**

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 78% with an average score of 6.7/10, based on 330 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "*Frozen II* can't quite recapture the showstopping feel of its predecessor, but it remains a dazzling adventure into the unknown." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 64 out of 100 based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, and those at PostTrak gave the film an average 4.5 out of 5 stars, with 71% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Manohla Dargis of *The New York Times* gave the film a positive review, saying, "As is often true in animation, *Frozen 2* soars highest when it embraces abstraction, as in one number with a pitch-black void that entertainingly evokes Jonathan Glazer's *Under the Skin*." Writing for MovieWeb, Julian Roman said that the film "is a darker journey, but illuminated with breathtaking animation and stunning action scenes. There's enough good humor for balance amid an avalanche of new songs." Nell Minow of *RogerEbert.com* gave the film a 3.5 out of 4 stars and said: "*Frozen II* has an autumnal palette, with russet and gold setting the stage for an unexpectedly elegiac tone in the follow-up to one of Disney's most beloved animated features." Ben Travis of *Empire* gave the film a four out of five stars, stating, "The best things about the first film—the characters and music—once again sing in a frequently dazzling if narratively flawed sequel that's better at being sensory than sense-making."

Peter Travers of *Rolling Stone* also gave the film a four out of five stars, and said, "the delight and dazzle of this frosty follow-up brings it all home in a climax that should have audiences panting for a part III." Todd McCarthy of *The Hollywood Reporter* gave a positive review of the film, saying, "*Frozen 2* has everything you would expect—catchy new songs, more time with easy-to-like characters, striking backdrops, cute little jokes, a voyage of discovery plot and female empowerment galore—expect the unexpected." Simran Hans of *The Guardian* gave the film a four out of five stars and said, "The sisters try to heal the sins of the past in a moving follow-up that touches on climate change and has at least one great song." Kristen Page-Kirby of *The Washington Post* gave the film a two out of four stars and wrote, "Yes, *Frozen II* is a letdown when compared with the original. But it's also a lackluster disappointment on its own—a pale shadow of what it could have been. It's hard to see how the same team who made something so cool in 2013 could deliver something so—there's no other word for it—lukewarm."