Frozen 3

The plans are to have more movies in this franchise with Frozen 3 likely coming next. The cast has crushed it through the first two films.

When Bob Iger stepped in recently to reclaim his rightful place as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, it was largely expected that changes at the House of Mouse would materialize in 2023. Ongoing discussions about the future of Disney-owned platforms like Hulu are being hashed out, while franchises as part of Disney’s content offerings are expanding. As a result, several sequels are now in the works at Disney, including Frozen 3, according to an announcement made this week by Deadline.

Alongside other high-profile sequels to Toy Story and Zootopia, Disney will be making Frozen 3 for audiences to enjoy in theaters. It’s no surprise Iger would announce such a move on Disney’s Q1 earnings call this week, as the Frozen franchise has been one of the most successful in Disney’s history. 2013’s Frozen grossed over $1.2 billion at the box office, and Frozen 2 raked in more than $1.4 billion in 2019.

With a lot of news coming almost daily from Disney, here is all we know about Frozen 3.

THE FROZEN 3 CAST WOULD LIKELY RETURN KRISTEN BELL, IDINA MENZEL, JONATHAN GROFF, AND JOSH GAD

It would be challenging to imagine Frozen 3 existing without the vocal work of the franchise’s established stars, including Kristen Bell as Anna, Idina Menzel as Elsa, Jonathan Groff as Kristoff, and Josh Gad as Olaf.

Last year, all four actors were inducted into Disney’s Hall of Fame when each became Disney Legends for their contributions to the Frozen films. A third installment simply wouldn’t work unless all four returned to reprise their iconic roles.

With that in mind, no official cast announcements have been made by Disney. However, that didn’t seem to stop actor Josh Gad from posting to social media about his excitement for Frozen 3.

In a Twitter post signifying he would be back for the new movie, Gad wrote that he is “excited to head back…into the Unknown.” The latter part of his statement references the Academy Award-nominated song from 2019’s Frozen 2, sung by Idina Menzel and Aurora.

Excited to head back… into the Unknown. #Frozen3 https://t.co/JCjJ79SXev pic.twitter.com/OCqyPsV2vY

— Josh Gad (@joshgad) February 8, 2023

Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee directed both Frozen and Frozen 2. The scores for both movies were composed by Christophe Beck, with original songs by the husband and wife team of EGOT winner Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. 

Frozen and its sequel are famous for their signature songs built into the story of each project, so the Lopez duo, Beck, Buck, and Lee would likely all return for Frozen 3 in some capacity.

THERE ARE NO CONFIRMED PLOT DETAILS FOR FROZEN 3

At this time, there is no information as to what Disney’s plans are for the plot of Frozen 3, but we can theorize based on previous installments. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s 19th-century fairytale The Snow Queen, Frozen dealt with Queen Elsa’s accidental icing of the kingdom of Arendelle. Frozen 2 diversified the cast and storyline of the franchise by having the main characters venture to an autumn forest in search of the origins of Elsa’s powers.

Frozen 2 introduced audiences to Sterling K. Brown as Destin Mattias, the lieutenant of Arendelle. It also created an origin story for Elsa and Anna’s mother’s birthright, revealing that the sisters come from a line of Northuldran heritage. In the end, Anna becomes Queen of Arendelle while Elsa assumes the role of protecting the Enchanted Forest.

The proposed Frozen 3 could dive deeper into exploring these themes as Anna rules over Arendelle with husband Kristoff by her side. Since both Arendelle and the Enchanted Forest seem to always be under constant threat, it should be assumed that Frozen 3 will showcase another epic battle to save the sisters’ homeland.

FROZEN 3 HAS NO CONFIRMED RELEASE DATE

Because the news of Frozen 3 coming to fruition was announced just this week, Disney has yet to reveal information about a possible release date for the sequel. It appears that Frozen 3, Zootopia 2, and Toy Story 5 will all go into production around the same time, so it could be a couple of years before audiences see any of these iterations. 

Frozen was released theatrically in 2013, and it took Disney six years to follow the film up with its sequel, so a 2025 premiere of Frozen 3 would make sense according to Disney’s typical timeline of distributing the Frozen films.

THE FUTURE OF DISNEY IS IN FLUX

The announcement of several sequels in popular franchises by Disney coming soon to theaters comes at a time of great transition for the media conglomerate. Frozen 3 might be just one project on which CEO Bob Iger is concentrated, but it will be vital to resuming business as usual for a company that’s changed hands several times in the past few years. The 71-year-old Iger suddenly became CEO last November after Disney ousted Bob Chapek, who had taken on the chief role in 2020 from Iger.

Disney’s profits have tanked in recent years, with their streaming platform Disney+ losing 2.4 million subscribers in the last three months of 2022 alone. According to Yahoo! finance, Disney is preparing to lay off 7,000 employees and eliminate $5.5 billion worth of costs. Iger’s newest restructuring will affect many of Disney’s platforms and networks, including ESPN, Disney Theme Parks, and Disney Entertainment.

Disney has hedged its bets on the success of the growing Marvel Cinematic Universe, calling attention to Phase Five that begins this month with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. However, with movies like Lightyear proving to be box office bombs last year, it seems that Bob Iger is paying attention to what loyal Disney fans want from their studios’ content.

It won’t be unexpected if Iger announces more sequels of franchises that were successful prior to the COVID pandemic, as the company is eager for audiences to return to theaters.

It will be interesting to see what Disney does in the near future to keep patrons engaged with their products while rolling out unpleasant news for their employees. Once Frozen 3 sees the light of day, nostalgia might benefit Disney by keeping loyal fans of the franchise captivated.