Case Study: Frozen

Production
The film has its origins from 1943, when the idea for a film based on The Snow Queen was first put forward, but it was eventually disregarded because it was unclear how they could adapt it to appeal to a modern audience. The idea was put into practice in the 1990's but then scrapped in 2002, and then it was pitched later to be re-started, and failed. In 2008, the idea was pitched again, and to be traditionally animated, but in 2010, the studios again found it hard to find a way of making it work and stopped the development. However in 2011, following the success of 'Tangled', Disney announced the title of 'Frozen' with a new crew from previous attempts, and the project started in 2012. It was produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures, with Peter Dal Vecho as the main producer, Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee as directors, where Jennifer also did the screenplay, the music by Christophe Beck and editing by Jeff Draheim. Like Tangled, the film was made from a mixture of CGI and hand-drawn imagery from a team of people at Disney Animation Studios, and the songs were written and composed by husband and wife Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.
Kristen Bell was cast as Anna, and Idina Menzel as Elsa, after they had impressed the casting directors with their singing.


Distribution
'Frozen' was widely marketed worldwide through the use of mostly official trailers on television, in cinemas and on the internet, and film posters in cinemas, on buses, on billboards and on the internet. Not much of the overall budget was used for the marketing as most of it was spent on production, considering the budget was nearly twice as less as that of Tangled (even though it then was nearly three times more successful than Tangled), although there was still a considerably high budget for marketing compared to many other recent films. Although Disney Animation Studios aimed the film mostly at children, the advertising branched out into places to attract a wider target audience.


Exhibition
The film was released on 27th November 2013 in the U.S., and continued to be released worldwide across many countries. On 31st January 2014, a sing-along version was also released. Meet-and-Greet opportunities also became available with some of the voice actors following the release.

Financial Success
Frozen has earned $396,356,000 in North America as of March 16, 2014, and $630,200,000 in other countries as of March 16, for a worldwide total of $1,026,556,000, which is a massive hit when in comparison to its $150 million budget. It is the fifteenth highest-grossing film, the second highest-grossing animated film, the second highest-grossing 2013 film, the highest-grossing 2013 animated film, the highest-grossing non-sequel animated film, the sixth highest-grossing film distributed by Disney, and the highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film. The film earned $110.6 million worldwide on its opening weekend. On March 2, 2014, its 101st day of release, it surpassed the $1-billion mark, becoming the eighteenth film in cinematic history, the seventh Disney-distributed film, the fifth non-sequel film, the second Disney-distributed film in 2013 (after Iron Man 3) and the second animated film (after Toy Story 3) to do so. Frozen is the first billion dollar movie to be directed by a woman.

Critical Success
Frozen was massively critically acclaimed with many many positive reviews, comparing the film favourably to other Disney classics such as The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. It was praised a lot on its visuals, screenplay, themes, musical numbers and voice acting. It was particularly positively reviewed on the 'Let It Go' musical sequence, with some critics calling it one of the best film sequences of this year, and 'Let It Go' also won an Oscar for best original song. Rotten Tomatoes showed that 89% of their critics gave Frozen a positive review, with an average score of 7.9/10, and CinemaScore gave it a score of A+ on the A+ to F scale. Other sources have also given the film extremely high ratings. The only thing that the film was really criticised for was sexism following a statement made from the head of the head of animation for Frozen, Lino DiSalvo.