Disney’s Frozen climbed to the No. 1 spot at the box office in its sixth week in wide release, and its lingering success has taken the animation past $1 billion dollars at the world wide box office. What made this movie such a phenomenon? There are four reasons.
It’s classical. Frozen brought back the classic Disney spirit, standing out for its old-fashioned story, fantasy like setting with a lonely princess in a castle and her kingdom under a dreadful spell. It’s textbook storytelling and a nice throwback to the classic tale that kids have always enjoyed and adults have fondly kept deep inside.
But in one way it deviates from the original stories, featuring two princesses. Despite how the world has changed and what the media portrays, girls still love princesses and two are better than one. Both princesses are different in temperament with Anna being the enthusiastic romantic extrovert and Elsa being the proper, elegant, and magical loner. This appeals to a big variety of girls.
Next would be the funny sidekick. It was hard not to love the adorable snowman who seemed to endlessly spout out funny remarks appealing to both young kids and adults. The structure usually consists of your two main characters and the sidekick. Movies like Shrek, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid are structured in this way. It has been awhile though since this has been seen in recent animations. Most animations usually switch out this character for a lovable animal pet like Samson in Sleeping Beauty or Pascal in Tangled. It was a classical element that was nice to see used again.
Lastly is obvious, the music. The Broadway singers did both the voice acting and singing which often is not typical of animation films. It has been a recent trend, however, being previously done in Tangled and brings life into the movie. The songs “Let it Go” was loved by all and is even played on local radio stations. The magic of Disney mixed with the outstanding skill of Broadway could not have been a better match.
It has widely been understood that Disney’s branch Pixar has been known to make the better animations of late but with Tangled and now Frozen its exciting to think that classic Disney is making a comeback.