Will there be a Frozen 3? After the epic scope of Frozen 2, fans are wondering when they’ll get to see Anna, Elsa, Olaf, and Kristoff return to the big screen. Sure, animated shorts are fun, but when will the Frozen crew continue their adventures in a full-length story? Here’s everything we know!
The success of Frozen 1 and 2
Frozen and Frozen 2 are two of Disney’s biggest success stories. Frozen was a box office hit, raking in $1.2 billion dollars, which made it the highest-grossing film of 2013. Frozen 2 did even better, bringing in $1.45 billion, and the only thing that kept it from earning the number one spot for 2019 was that year’s stiff competition (Avengers: Endgame and The Lion King).
More than the numbers though, Frozen‘s cultural impact can’t be overstated. Elsa, Anna, and Olaf have become household names, even if those households don’t have kids. Songs like “Let It Go” and “Into the Unknown” became breakout hits thanks to the talent of Idina Menzel (who voices Elsa), and the franchise has spawned a number of animated shorts like “Frozen Fever” and, more recently, a whole series in which Olaf narrates other Disney movies. The characters of Frozen, and the world of Arendelle and the Enchanted Forest, are beloved by fans of all ages. Plus, the first two movies were so richly detailed that they’ve left Disney with plenty more stories to tell.
Why should there be a Frozen 3?
We’re all familiar with the phenomenon of studios churning out sequel after sequel for the sake of milking a franchise for all it’s worth. But there are actually some compelling reasons, story-wise, for the Frozen series to get another full-length feature.
The first Frozen seems to end on a happy note. Elsa, forced to keep her powers secret her whole life by well-meaning parents who fear for her safety, is finally able to come out and be herself. She rejoins Arendelle as its queen, and the skating rink she creates in the final scene of the movie demonstrates that her people accept her for who she is. There’s a bittersweet edge to the ending, since it raises the question of whether she ever needed to hide her powers at all, but overall it shows that Elsa is able to stop running from her power and step into it instead.
The beginning of Frozen 2 though, shows that Elsa’s happy ending isn’t as straightforward as we thought it was. She’s restless in Arendelle and not completely loving her job as queen, yearning to explore the mysterious voice that keeps calling her. After her adventures in the Enchanted Forest, Elsa realizes that she’s actually the fifth elemental spirit tasked with bridging the divide between humans and nature. Elsa chooses to abdicate the throne as queen of Arendelle and becomes the Snow Queen instead, living with the Northuldra and exploring the mysteries of Ahtohallan. Anna, in turn, takes the throne of Arendelle.
What makes the ending of Frozen 2 so satisfying—and what makes fans crave more from the series—is that in a way, it’s actually Elsa’s origin story. Elsa accepting her powers and going back to the life she was already living is nice, but in retrospect, it’s pretty limiting for her character. Having Elsa discover why she has her powers, and then step into a role that she was literally born for, blows her future wide open. What will Elsa do as Snow Queen? How will she serve the forest and help keep human beings connected to the natural world? How will her character evolve as she continues to discover new layers to her power and her life’s purpose? The final shot of Frozen 2, which sees Elsa riding the water spirit back to Ahtohallan, suggests that she has plenty more to learn and do as Snow Queen.
Plus, there are plenty of other loose ends for a threequel to delve into. Both Prince Hans and the Duke of Weselton are still out there, and presumably still pissed off and villainous. Anna never expected to be queen, yet here she is—with humble Kristoff poised to rule alongside her. The Northuldra, trapped in the Enchanted Forest for a whole generation, now need to adjust to having contact with the outside world again. Any one of these threads would make a really interesting plot for a threequel, and they could be combined in some intriguing ways. What if Hans heard about Elsa’s abdication and saw it as a chance to seize power in Arendelle? What if tensions began to rise again between Arendelle and the Northuldra? The Frozen movies contain some really deep and thoughtful worldbuilding, and Disney has given itself a wealth of possibilities to explore in a threequel.
Is there going to be a sequel?
On June 20, 2022, Kristen Bell was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
At the end of her segment, which also covered her new children’s book and working with Kareem Abdul Jabar on Veronica Mars, Fallon asked Bell if she could announce anything about Frozen 3. Bell then took a breath and said, to the sound of a drumroll, “I would like to officially announce, with zero authority, Frozen 3.”
Bell then seemed to backpedal a bit, saying that she and Idina Menzel are both on board to do a threequel, but production hasn’t started. She emphasized that she doesn’t have the authority to make an official announcement, despite just having made an official announcement:
Please bear in mind I did say “zero authority,” ’cause I can’t do that. Yeah, I can’t do that because I’m not in charge … I’ll keep it mysterious. But I know Idina recently said she would do it, and I feel like if we’re all in, what are we waiting for? We want it. Let’s do it.
A few months later, in February 2023, Bob Iger announced that Frozen 3 was in the works during an earnings call.
However, don’t expect the finished result any time soon. Remember that a whopping six years passed between the first and second Frozen movies, and Frozen 2 only came out in 2019. Disney will most likely take their time to make sure that the third movie is just as high quality as the first two. (After all, no one wants a repeat of The Little Mermaid sequels.)
It’s definitely been a rocky road to a threequel, with Frozen stars being asked for years now if they had any details about the upcoming project. Back in 2020, in an interview with Popculture.com, Josh Gad was cagey about the idea of a Frozen 3.
“I don’t know. I mean, here’s the deal. Frozen II wasn’t Frozen II until there was a reason to exist. And similarly, I don’t know if and when there will be a Frozen III. That’s way above my pay grade, but what I can tell you is this: There was an opportunity to take these characters and bring again a sense of hope and inspiration. … If there’s always a story worth telling, I’m sure that Jennifer Lee and the incredible team over at Disney animation will tell that story one day.”
Jonathan Groff, who plays Kristoff, also discussed Frozen 3 during an appearance on The Tonight Show, where he said, “I feel like, even though those projects seem very different, Frozen and Mindhunter, I feel like a third Frozen and a third season of Mindhunter are equally possible.”
We’ll continue to post details as we get them!
(featured image: Disney)
