Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee directorial animated film Frozen 2 has witnessed a strong business at the box office during the opening weekend. According to reports, it has grossed $350 million worldwide in its first three days since debuting on November 22, and is the biggest global opening of all time for an animated film.
The sequel of the 2013 blockbuster hit Frozen released in India in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. It has been in theatres only for a week, and is already the 23rd highest-grossing film in the world this year. Furthermore, it is likely to become Disney’s sixth film of 2019 to make more than $1 billion worldwide.
Set in fantastical land of Arendelle, Frozen is a story of two sisters Elsa and Anna who are on a path of finding acceptance and love, while trying to save their kingdom infused with heart-touching music and emotions. Elsa is struggling to accept her magical icy powers and effervescent Anna is trying to find a bond with her sister.
Frozen 2 brings back their story as they continue on the journey of finding their own self, by tracing their past and piecing it together with their present.
Making the sequel was extremely challenging. We wanted to have our characters go to a different place and go outside of Arendelle. And we knew we wanted to have new characters to expand this world a bit, Buck said.
The challenge is how to stay true to the characters and let them grow. We have a map going on in our head of all these things, he explained further.
Frozen won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It became the highest-grossing animated film before remake of The Lion King took that position in 2019. And with great success comes great responsibility.
When 'Frozen' came out, it wasn't just our movie but the movie of the world. That was exciting to us and but that comes with a lot of expectations for the sequel. But truthfully, we agreed that we would keep that pressure outside the room and build 'Frozen 2' the same way we built 'Frozen', which is really talking about character first and then plot and then having the songwriters get involved and let the songs come from the story, Buck noted.
To this, Lee added: It was the exact same team who built 'Frozen' and we made a pact that we're going to build it exactly as we did the first one. The challenges were much greater in terms of where do you go from here. But you have the foundation of these characters. The characters were a little bit of us and we all knew them so well.