Disney’s double-Oscar winning animation Frozen is a bona fide hit.


It’s the highest-grossing animated film of all time with a whopping global box office total of $1, 072 billion. Children everywhere are dressing up as princess Anna and Queen Elsa (voiced by Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel respectively), singing the songs, singing the songs and singing the songs a bit more.

There’s even a picture doing the rounds on the internet of a teacher keeping track of how many days (which had to be changed to hours) her class has managed to go without singing one of the songs.

That Let It Go track is just too catchy.

Disney producer Don Hahn, who has worked on titles such as The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and most recently as executive producer on Maleficent, says the team has been blown away by the success.

“I’ve talked to the filmmakers on Frozen and they’re, I guess, god smacked would be the word.

“It did become a phenomenon and everybody is singing the songs and every kid is dressing up as those characters and that’s something you can’t control. That’s just in the air. It’s the zeitgeist of the times that makes something like that.

“In the end, it’s humbling when that happens because it’s an audience buying in to your movie.”

There’s already a Broadway musical in the works. But could there be a sequel one day?

“Well, it is called showbusiness,” says Hahn. “I would imagine that at some point, yeah. The thing is, the audience demand I think is probably going to be there, whether it’s a sequel or whether it’s a stage show or whatever.

“I think the audience would always love to see more of those characters,” he adds.

Perhaps a spin-off with one of the characters could work? Singing snowman Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad) could surely fill theatres.

“I can make that phone call for you,” Hahn jokes.

Indeed, putting the spotlight on different characters is a prominent theme with Disney at the moment. Hahn’s own work on Maleficent, in which Angelina Jolie stars, offers a re-imaginging of the original Sleeping Beauty tale from the point of view of the villain. In addition, a selection of Disney DVDs are to be re-released with the villain on the cover.

Hahn muses, “If you look at the catalogue of Disney films, there’s very few you wouldn’t want to do again.”

The Disney Villains Collection is available from 2nd June


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