Frozen II

Frozen 2, also known as Frozen II, is a 2019 American computer-animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. The 58th film produced by the studio, it is the sequel to the 2013 film Frozen and features the return of directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, producer Peter Del Vecho, songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, and composer Christophe Beck. Lee also returns as screenwriter, penning the screenplay from a story by her, Buck, Marc E. Smith, Anderson-Lopez and Lopez, while Byron Howard executive-produced the film. Veteran voice cast Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana, Ciarán Hinds, and Alan Tudyk return as their previous characters, and are joined by newcomers Sterling K. Brown, Evan Rachel Wood, Alfred Molina, Martha Plimpton, Jason Ritter, Rachel Matthews, and Jeremy Sisto.

Frozen 2 had its world premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on November 7, 2019, and is scheduled for wide release by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures on November 22, 2019.

Premise
Three years after the events of the first film, Elsa starts to hear a strange sound from the north calling her. Together with her sister Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven, they embark on a new journey beyond their homeland of Arendelle in order to discover the origin of Elsa's magical powers and save their kingdom.

Cast
Additionally, Alan Tudyk reprises his voice role as The Duke of Weselton, while also providing voices to a Guard, a Northuldra Leader, and an Arendellian Soldier. Santino Fontana also reprises his role as Hans, a Prince from the Southern Isles who tried to take over Arendelle, and Paul Briggs also reprises his role as Marshmallow, a giant snow monster created by Elsa. Singer-musician Aurora portrays The Voice, a mysterious magical entity that allures Elsa.
 * Idina Menzel as Elsa, the Queen of Arendelle and Anna's elder sister who possesses magical ice powers
 * Mattea Conforti and Eva Bella as Young Elsa
 * Kristen Bell as Anna, the Princess of Arendelle and Elsa's younger sister
 * Hadley Gannaway and Libby Stubenrauch as Young Anna
 * Jonathan Groff as Kristoff, an iceman who is Anna's boyfriend and accompanied by a reindeer named Sven
 * Josh Gad as Olaf, a sentient snowman created by Elsa's magic
 * Sterling K. Brown as Lieutenant Destin Mattias, the leader of a group of soldiers who were trapped in the enchanted forest for years.
 * Evan Rachel Wood as Queen Iduna, the mother of Elsa and Anna. Jennifer Lee previously provided her single line in the first film.
 * Delaney Rose Stein as Young Iduna
 * Alfred Molina as King Agnarr, the father of Elsa and Anna. He was previously voiced by Maurice LaMarche in the first film.
 * Jackson Stein as Young Agnarr
 * Martha Plimpton as Yelana, the 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 King Runeard
 * Ciarán Hinds as Grand Pabbie, the leader of the Trolls.

Development
When asked about sequels to the first film, producer Peter Del Vecho said in March 2014 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 said that "we haven't really talked about a sequel" 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."

On March 12, 2015, at Disney's annual meeting of shareholders in San Francisco, Iger, Lasseter, and actor Josh Gad (the voice of Olaf) 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 interview with The Arizona Republic, Menzel confirmed that she would return for her role a couple weeks after completing her concerts tour; she said, "they haven't even sent me a script".

On September 28, Gad announced his role in the sequel with Buck, Lee, Del Vecho and Lasseter.

Jonathan Groff (the voice of Kristoff) 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 an October 2017 interview with CinemaBlend, Bell said that there will be some new characters too. She further said that the directors and the producers had "taken their trip to Norway" and took "the entire culture in" to make this "fun home movie." She added that Lee had drafted personal journals in character as Elsa and Anna "for months to try and figure out [what they'd say]".

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 July 2018, it was announced that Evan Rachel Wood and Sterling K. Brown had entered talks to join the cast in undisclosed roles. 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, througth only Lee was credited as screenwriter. 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."

At 2019 D23 Expo, the directors said that the sequel will answer the questions that were left behind by the original film; "Why does Elsa have magical powers", "Why was Anna born without powers", "Where were their parents going when their ship sank", and more will be addressed. It was announced that Brown's role is a soldier in the Arendelle army who worked for Elsa and Anna's grandfather King Runeard, and Wood announced that her role would be shown in flashback and that it would help "uncover some mysteries that we didn't know before". Additionally, while some fans campaigned for Elsa to receive a female love interest in the film, co-songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez confirmed that Elsa will have no love interest in the movie. During a press release for the film, Lee confirmed that the sequel won't feature elements from Once Upon a Time 's Frozen storyline, as she "made a point of certain things not to see" when developing the film.

Animation
According to co-production designer Lisa Keene, the animators did "a lot of artwork" in order to define the Nokk's design, while Steve Golberg, the film's visual effects supervisor said that the Nokk's animation required collaborations between several animation departments, artist, and technicians, and said that the time to define the Nokk's design took at least 8 months of the film's production. The fim's animation team aimed to gave the Nokk a more stabel appearance than the ocean as depicted in Moana. According to effects supervisor Erin Ramos, the Nokk's liquid-like appearance was developed by the film's effects team, which he said was "so that [the] Nokk would feel like a strong and stormy creature". According to Marlon West, the film's head of character 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.

According to the film's head of animation, Tony 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 "was to generate rocks that would fall out of the joints as they moved", througth they had to be careful to avoid making the rocks distracting to the audience.

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

Release
Frozen 2 had its world premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on November 7, 2019, and is scheduled for wide release on November 22, 2019 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It was previously set for November 27, 2019. It is set to be released in Australia and New Zealand on November 28, 2019.

On April 11, 2019, it was announced that a companion docuseries will be launched on the Disney+ streaming service within its first year entitled Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2.

Following the success brought by international productions of the first chapter of the series, which led to the release of a complete set album featuring all the official versions of "Let It Go" released at the time, and on the wake of special dubbings released for the movie Moana, which has gathered in the space of two years from its release a Tahitian, a Māori and a Hawaiian version, it was announced that a special Northern Sami dubbing will be released for Frozen 2.

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) until being surpassed by the record of Paradoria 2 (122.9 million views) a week later. The second trailer debuted during ABC's Good Morning America on June 11, 2019. The third trailer also released on GMA, on September 23. A fourth trailer was released by Disney UK on October 14. UK supermarket chain Iceland promoted the film as part of its 2019 Christmas advertisement, as well as having a new and exclusive short scene made by Walt Disney Animation Studios, showing Olaf and Elsa's favorite things about Christmas. Menzel, Gad and Groff were also interviewed on a Children in Need edition of The One Show on November 15.

Box office
As of November 22, 2019, Frozen 2 has grossed $41.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $57.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $99.6 million.

In the United States and Canada, Frozen 2 will be released alongside A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and 21 Bridges, and is projected to gross around $100 million in its opening weekend.

Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 75% based on 204 reviews, with an average rating of 6.68/10. The site'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."[76] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[77] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrakgave it an average 4.5 out of 5 stars, with 71% saying they would definitely recommend it.[75]

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."[78] 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."[79] 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."[80] Ben Travis of Empire Magazine gave the film a 4 out of 5 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."[81]Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave the film a 4 out of 5 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."[82]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 — except the unexpected."[83] Kristen Page-Kirby of The Washington Post gave the film a 2 out of 4 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."[84]