Disney’s Jennifer Lee “Blown Away” By Studio’s Work On ‘Frozen 3’, Shares ‘Wish’ Clip At London Film Festival

Zac Ntim
·2 min read
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Jennifer Lee, Chief Creative Officer at Disney Animation, confirmed this afternoon that work has quietly begun on a third edition in the company’s Frozen film franchise during a keynote session at the London Film Festival (LFF).

Lee — who was a writer and director on the first two Frozen films — was tightlipped about any specific details regarding the threequel, including timeframes and production status, but told the LFF audience that she is “blown away” by the work the studio already has in the can.

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“All I’ll say is that last week, they carved out time for me to work with the creative team on it. And I’m blown away,” Lee said. “I’m so excited. I don’t know what I’m doing on it yet. I might be doing nothing.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed earlier this year that the company had plans to create new additions to the Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia franchises. Frozen 2 clocked $1.45 billion at the global box office in 2019. The song “Into the Unknown” from the pic was nominated for Best Original Song at the 2020 Oscars, while the first film won two Oscars in 2014, including Best Animated Feature and Best Song. The Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez’s anthem Let It Go went 8x platinum with 8M units sold stateside. The Frozen franchise counts $2.73 billion at the global box office.

Elsewhere during today’s keynote, chaired by former LFF head Tricia Tuttle, Lee also teased the studio’s upcoming animated feature, Wish. The film stars Angelique Cabral (Big Sky, Life in Pieces) alongside Chris Pine, Ariana DeBose, and Evan Peters.

The animated feature follows Asha, a sharp-witted idealist who makes a wish so powerful that it is answered by a cosmic force: a little ball of boundless energy called Star. Together, Asha and Star set out to prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen. Alan Tudyk also stars as a talking goat, Valentino Hall.

“We’ve never done this expansive of a whole journey of a villain,” Lee said of the feature before sharing an extended clip. The footage featured a new original song from musician Julia Michaels.

Speaking specifically about Pine’s performance, Lee added: “Chris Pine also brought that to it because that’s what he needs to get inside the meat of the character emotionally. He was such an incredible partner to do that. He’s so smart and can sing, so he just kept coming alive more every day.”

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