Frozen (2013 film)

Frozen is a 2013 American 3D computer-animated musical fantasy-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 53rd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. Loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen, and featuring the voices of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, and Santino Fontana, the film tells the story of a fearless princess who sets off on an epic journey alongside a rugged, thrill-seeking mountain man, his loyal pet reindeer, and a hapless snowman to find her estranged sister, whose icy powers have trapped the kingdom in eternal winter.

The film underwent several story treatments for several years, before being commissioned in 2011, with a screenplay written by Jennifer Lee, and both Chris Buck and Lee serving as directors. Christophe Beck, who had worked on Disney's award-winning short Paperman, was hired to compose the film's orchestral score, while husband-and-wife songwriting team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez penned the songs.

Frozen premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on November 19, 2013, and went into general theatrical release on November 27. The film has so far grossed $958 million in worldwide box office revenue, $378 million of which has been earned in the United States and Canada; it has been met with widespread critical acclaim, with several film critics considering it to be the best Disney animated musical since the studio's renaissance era. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, five Annie Awards (including Best Animated Feature), two Critics' Choice Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for "Let It Go", and has received Academy Award (Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song), and Satellite Award nominations.

Plot
Elsa, princess of Arendelle, possesses the magical ability to create ice and snow. One night while playing, she accidentally injures her younger sister Anna. The king and queen seek help from trolls, who heal Anna and remove her memories of her sister's magic. The royal couple decides to lock the family away in their castle until Elsa learns to control her powers. Afraid of hurting her sister again, Elsa spends most of her time alone in her room, causing a rift between the sisters as they grow up. When the girls are teenagers, their parents are lost at sea during a storm.

When Elsa comes of age, the kingdom prepares for her coronation. Among the guests is the Duke of Weselton, a tradesman seeking to exploit Arendelle for profit. Excited to be allowed out of the castle again, Anna explores the town and meets Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, and the two immediately develop a mutual attraction. Despite Elsa's fear, her coronation goes off without incident. During the reception, Hans proposes and Anna hastily accepts. However, Elsa refuses to grant her blessing and forbids their sudden marriage. The two sisters argue, culminating in Elsa's abilities being exposed to everyone as she is unable to control her emotions.

Panicking, Elsa flees the palace, inadvertently unleashing eternal winter on the kingdom in the process. High in the mountains far from Arendelle, she casts off restraint, building herself a solitary ice palace, and unknowingly brings to life her and Anna's childhood snowman, Olaf. Meanwhile, Anna sets out in search of her sister, determined to return her to Arendelle, end the winter, and mend their relationship. While getting supplies, she meets mountain man Kristoff and his reindeer Sven. She convinces him to guide her up the North Mountain. The group then encounters Olaf, who leads them to Elsa's hideaway.

Anna and Elsa are reunited, but Elsa still fears hurting her sister. When Anna persists in persuading her older sister to return, Elsa becomes agitated, and accidentally strikes Anna in the heart with her powers. She then creates a giant snow creature to run the friends out of her castle. As they flee, Kristoff notices that Anna's hair is turning white, and seeks help from his adoptive family of trolls. They are told that Anna's heart has been frozen, and unless it's thawed by an "act of true love", she will become frozen solid forever. Believing that only Hans can save her, Kristoff races back with her to Arendelle.

Meanwhile, Hans, who had gone on a search for Anna, encounters Elsa's palace. In the ensuing battle against the Duke's men, she is knocked unconscious and imprisoned back at the kingdom. There, Hans pleads with her to undo the winter, but Elsa confesses she doesn't know how. When Anna is reunited with Hans and begs him to kiss her to break the curse, Hans refuses and reveals that his true intention in marrying her is to seize control of Arendelle's throne. Leaving Anna to die, Hans charges Elsa with treason for her younger sister's apparent death.

Elsa escapes and heads out into the blizzard on the fjord. Olaf finds Anna and reveals Kristoff is in love with her. The two then rush onto the fjord to find him. Hans confronts Elsa and tells her Anna is dead because of her. In Elsa's despair, the storm suddenly stops, giving Kristoff and Anna the chance to reach each other. However Anna, seeing that Hans is about to kill Elsa, decides to throw herself between the two and subsequently freezes solid, blocking the blow.

As Elsa grieves for her sister, Anna begins to thaw; her decision to sacrifice herself to save her sister constitutes an "act of true love". Realizing love is the key to controlling her powers, Elsa is able to thaw the kingdom and even helps Olaf survive in summer. Hans is sent back to the Southern Isles to face punishment for his crimes against the royal family of Arendelle, and Elsa cuts off trade with Weselton. Anna and Kristoff share a kiss, and the two sisters reconcile, with Elsa promising never to shut the castle gates again.

Voice cast

 * Kristen Bell as Anna, princess of Arendelle and Elsa's younger sister
 * Livvy Stubenrauch as Young Anna
 * Katie Lopez as Young Anna (singing)
 * Agatha Lee Monn as Teenage Anna (singing)
 * Idina Menzel as Elsa, the Snow Queen and Anna's elder sister
 * Eva Bella as Young Elsa
 * Spencer Lacey Ganus as Teenage Elsa
 * Jonathan Groff as Kristoff, a mountain man, who owns a reindeer named Sven
 * Josh Gad as Olaf, a humorous snowman with intentions of experiencing summer
 * Santino Fontana as Hans, a prince from the Southern Isles
 * Alan Tudyk as the Duke of Weselton
 * Ciarán Hinds as Grand Pabbie the Troll King
 * Chris Williams as Oaken, the owner of Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna
 * Maia Wilson as Bulda, a troll
 * Maurice LaMarche as the King of Arendelle, Anna and Elsa's father
 * Jennifer Lee as the Queen of Arendelle, Anna and Elsa's mother

Origins
In 1943, Walt Disney and Samuel Goldwyn had considered the possibility of collaborating to produce a biography film of author and poet Hans Christian Andersen, where Goldwyn's studio would shoot the live-action sequences of Andersen's life and Disney would create the animated sequences. The animated sequences were to include stories of Andersen's works, such as The Little Mermaid, The Little Match Girl, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, The Ugly Duckling, The Red Shoes, and The Emperor's New Clothes. Disney and his animators encountered difficulty with The Snow Queen, as they could not find a way to adapt and relate the Snow Queen character to modern audiences. Even as far back as the 1940s, Disney's animation department saw great cinematic possibilities with the source material, but the Snow Queen character proved to be too problematic. This, among other things, led to the cancellation of the Disney-Goldwyn project. Goldwyn went on to produce his own live-action film version in 1952, entitled Hans Christian Andersen, with Danny Kaye as Andersen, Charles Vidor directing, Moss Hart writing, and Frank Loesser penning the songs. All of Andersen's fairy tales were, instead, told in song and ballet in live-action, like the rest of the film. It went on to receive six Academy Award nominations the following year. Back at Disney, The Snow Queen, along with other Andersen fairy tales (including The Little Mermaid), were shelved.

Later efforts
In the late 1990s, Walt Disney Feature Animation started on their own adaptation of The Snow Queen after the tremendous success of their recent films, but the project was scrapped completely in late 2002, when Glen Keane quit the project. Even before then, Harvey Fierstein pitched his version of the story to the Disney executives, but was turned down. Dick Zondag and Dave Goetz all had their try on it, but failed. Disney shelved the project again. Michael Eisner, then-CEO and chairman of The Walt Disney Company, offered his support to the project and suggested doing it with John Lasseter at Pixar Animation Studios, when the studios would get their contracts renewed.

The project was revived again around 2008 when Chris Buck pitched Disney his version of the adaptation. At the time, the project went under name of Anna and the Snow Queen, and was planned to be traditionally animated. By early 2010, the project entered development hell once again, when the studio failed to find a way to make the story and the Snow Queen character work.

Revitalization
On December 22, 2011, following the success of Tangled, Disney announced a new title for the film, Frozen, a release date, November 27, 2013, and a different crew from the previous attempt. A month later, it was confirmed that the film would be a computer animated feature in stereoscopic 3D, instead of the intended hand drawn animation. On March 5, 2012, it was announced that Chris Buck would be directing, with John Lasseter and Peter Del Vecho producing.

After Disney decided to advance The Snow Queen into development again, one of the main challenges Buck and Del Vecho faced was the character of the Snow Queen, who in that earlier version of the story was a villain. Buck and Del Vecho presented their storyboards to John Lasseter, with the entire production team adjourned to a conference to hear Lasseter's thoughts on this work-in-progress. Production designer Michael Giaimo, recalled; "That was the game changer...I remember John saying that the latest version of The Snow Queen story that Chris Buck and his team had come up with was fun, very light-hearted. But the characters didn't resonate. They aren't multi-faceted. Which is why John felt that audiences wouldn't really be able to connect with them." The production team then addressed the film's problems, drafting several different variations on The Snow Queen story until the characters and story felt relevant. Finally, their decision to rewrite the film's protagonist, Anna (who was based on the Gerda character from The Snow Queen), as the younger sibling of Elsa, effectively establishing a family dynamic between the characters.

Production
Actress Kristen Bell was cast as the voice of Anna on March 5, 2012. Lee admitted that Bell's casting selection was influenced after the filmmakers listened to a series of vocal tracks Bell had recorded when she was young, where the actress performed several songs from The Little Mermaid, including "Part of Your World". Bell completed her recording sessions while she was pregnant, and subsequently re-recorded some of her character's lines after her pregnancy, as her voice had deepened. When asked on her approach to Anna, Kristen Bell replied, "I'm really excited to show it to people. I became a part of the kind of movie I wanted to see as a kid," she said. "I always loved Disney animation, but there was something about the females that was unattainable to me. Their posture was too good and they were too well-spoken, and I feel like I really made this girl much more relatable and weirder and scrappier and more excitable and awkward. I'm really proud of that."

Idina Menzel, a Broadway veteran, was cast as Elsa. She and Bell impressed the directors with a duet at an early table read. Between December 2012 and June 2013, additional casting roles were announced; including Jonathan Groff as Kristoff, Alan Tudyk as the Duke of Weselton, Santino Fontana as Prince Hans, and Josh Gad as Olaf.

On November 30, 2012, it was announced that Jennifer Lee, one of the screenwriters of Wreck-It Ralph, had joined Buck as co-director. The filmmakers hired Lee initially as a screenwriter, following her work on Wreck-It Ralph. Lee then became heavily involved with the film's pre-development process, working closely with director Chris Buck and songwriters, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Following the announcement, Jennifer Lee became the first woman to direct a full-length animated motion picture produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Animation


Similar to Tangled, Frozen employed a unique artistic style by blending features of both computer-generated imagery (CGI) and traditional hand-drawn animation together. The film's animators visited an Ice Hotel in Quebec City to study how light reflects and refracts on snow and ice. For the film's setting, the animators used the landscape of Norway and the feel of the winter season of Wyoming for inspiration. "We had a very short time schedule for this film, so our main focus was really to get the story right but we knew that John Lasseter is keen on truth in the material and creating a believable world, and again that doesn't mean it's a realistic world - but a believable one. It was important to see the scope and scale of Norway, and important for our animators to know what it's like," Del Vecho remarked. "There is a real feeling of Lawrence of Arabia scope and scale to this," he finished. Back at the studio, Del Vecho explained the film's production: "On this movie we do have character leads, supervising animators on specific characters. The animators themselves may work on multiple characters but it’s always under one lead. I think it was different on Tangled, for example, but we chose to do it this way as we wanted one person to fully understand and develop their own character and then be able to impart that to the crew. Hyrum Osmond, the animator on Olaf, is quiet but he has a funny, wacky personality so we knew he'd bring a lot of comedy to it; Anna's animator, Becky Bresee, it's her first time leading a character and we wanted her to lead Anna." In order to get the general feeling of each scene, some animators did their own acting. "I actually film myself acting the scene out, which I find very helpful," said animation supervisor Rebecca Wilson Bresee. This helped her discover elements that made the scene feel real and believable.

Regarding the look and nature of the film's cinematography, the film's art director Michael Giaimo was greatly influenced by Jack Cardiff's work in Black Narcissus. According to him, it lent a hyper-reality to the film: "Because this is a movie with such scale and we have the Norwegian fjords to draw from, I really wanted to explore the depth. From a design perspective, since I was stressing the horizontal and vertical aspects, and what the fjords provide, it was perfect. We encased the sibling story in scale." Ted D. McCord's work in The Sound of Music was another major influence for Giaimo; "The juxtaposition of character and environment and the counterpart of how they played in terms of cinematography was brilliant in that film." It was also Giaimo's idea that Frozen should be filmed in CinemaScope, which was approved by Lasseter. Giaimo also wanted to ensure that Norway's fjords, architecture and rosemaling folk art, were critical factors in designing the environment of Arendelle. Giaimo, whose background is animation, noted that the art design environment represents a unity of character and environment and that he originally wanted to incorporate saturated colors, which is typically ill-advised in computer animation. A live reindeer was brought into the studio for animators to study its movements and mannerisms for the character, Sven.

During production, the film's English title was changed from The Snow Queen to Frozen, a decision that drew comparisons to Tangled. Peter Del Vecho explained that "the title Frozen came up independently of the title Tangled. It's because, to us, it represents the movie. Frozen plays on the level of ice and snow but also the frozen relationship, the frozen heart that has to be thawed. We don't think of comparisons between Tangled and Frozen, though." He also mentioned that the film will still retain its original title, The Snow Queen, in some foreign countries: "because that just resonated stronger in some countries than Frozen. Maybe there's a richness to The Snow Queen in the country's heritage and they just wanted to emphasize that." The studio also developed several new tools to generate realistic and believable shots, particularly the heavy and deep snow and its interactions with the characters. Disney wanted an 'all-encompassing' and organic tool to provide snow effects but not require switching between different methods. Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, a professor from the California Institute of Technology, was invited to give lectures to the effects group on how snow and ice form, and why snowflakes are unique. Using this knowledge, together with maths, physics and the help of computers, the effects group created a snow simulator and snowflake generator called Matterhorn that allowed them to randomly create 2,000 unique snowflake shapes for the film, according to effects supervisor Dale Mayeda. The software was also capable of depicting realistic snow in a virtual environment and it held responsibility for several key sequences of the film. This method, in addition, gave audiences an illusion that the snow packs together as one thing and then breaks into pieces, while they are actually pieces already, the snow particles are just moving around, as explained by principal software engineer Andrew Selle. Other tools designed to help artists complete complicated effects included Spaces, which allowed Olaf's deconstructible parts to be moved around and rebuilt, Flourish, which aided extra movement such as leaves and twigs to be art-directed; Snow Batcher, which helped preview the final look of the snow, especially when characters were interacting with an area of snow by walking through a volume, and Tonic, which enabled artists to sculpt their characters' hair as procedural volumes. Tonic essentially aided in animating elements such as Elsa's hair, which contains 420,000 CG threads, while the average number for human is only 100,000. The number of character rigs in Frozen is 312 and the number of simulated costumes also reached 245 cloth rigs, which were far beyond all other Disney films to date, according to Frank Hanner, character CG supervisor. Besides 3D effects, the filmmakers also used 2D artworks and drawings for specific elements and sequences in the film, including Elsa's magic and snow sculptures, as well as freezing fountains and floor. The effects group created a "capture stage" where the entire world of Frozen gets displayed on monitors, which can be "filmed" on special cameras to operate a three-dimensional scene. "We can take this virtual set that's mimicking all of my actions and put it into any one of our scenes in the film," said technology manager Evan Goldberg.

Scandinavian inspiration
While the setting was principally based on Norway, the cultural influences in the film come from Scandinavian culture as a whole and from Scandinavia's indigenous Sámi culture. Several landmarks in Norway appear in the film, including the Akershus Fortress in Oslo, the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim and Bryggen in Bergen. Numerous other typical cultural Scandinavian elements are also included in the film, such as a stave church, trolls, Viking ships, Fjord horses, clothes and food such as lutefisk. A maypole is also present in the film, as well as the brief appearance of runes on the king and queen's grave. The movie also contains several elements specifically drawn from the Sámi culture, such as the usage of reindeer for transportation and the equipment used to control these, clothing styles (the outfits of the ice cutters), and parts of the musical score. Decorations, such as those on the castle pillars and Kristoff's sled are also in styles inspired by Sámi duodji decorations. During their field work in Norway, Disney's team visited Rørosrein, a Sámi family-owned company in the village Plassje which produces reindeer meat and arranges tourist events, for inspiration. Arendelle was inspired by Nærøyfjord, a branch of Norway's longest fjord Sognefjorden, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The filmmakers' trip to Norway provided essential knowledge for the animators to come up with the design aesthetic for the film in terms of color, light, and atmosphere. According to Giaimo, there were three important factors that they had acquired from this research trip: the fjords, which are the massive vertical rock formations, and serve as the setting for the secluded kingdom of Arendelle; the medieval stave churches, whose rustic triangular rooflines and shingles inspired the castle compound; and the rosemaling folk art, whose distinctive paneling and grid patterns informed the architecture, decor, and costumes.

Music
The songs for Frozen were written and composed by the husband-and-wife songwriting team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, both of whom had previously worked with Walt Disney Animation Studios on Winnie the Pooh. Lopez and Anderson-Lopez's "Let It Go" and "In Summer" were previewed at the 2013 D23 Expo, with the former being performed by Idina Menzel. In February 2013, Christophe Beck was hired to score the film, following his highly acclaimed work on Paperman, a Disney animated short film released the year prior to Frozen. Kristen Bell also confirmed that there would be a duet between her and Menzel. It was also revealed on September 14, 2013 that Sámi musician Frode Fjellheim's Eatnemen Vuelie would be the film's opening song, as it contains elements of the traditional Sámi singing style joik. The songs by Lopez and Anderson-Lopez were arranged and orchestrated by Dave Metzger, who also orchestrated a significant portion of Beck's score.

For the orchestral film score, composer Christophe Beck gave homage to the Norway- and Sápmi-inspired setting, employing regional instruments such as the bukkehorn and traditional vocal techniques, such as kulning. The music producers recruited a Norwegian linguist to assist with the lyrics for an Old Norse song written for Elsa's coronation, and also traveled to Norway to record the all-female choir Cantus, for a piece inspired by traditional Sámi music. The score was recorded by an 80-piece orchestra, featuring 32 vocalists, including native Norwegian Christine Hals. Beck worked with Lopez and Anderson-Lopez on incorporating their songs into arrangements in the score. The trio's goal "was to create a cohesive musical journey from beginning to end."

Release
Frozen was released to 3,742 theaters on November 27, 2013, and it was accompanied by the new Mickey Mouse animated short film, Get a Horse! The film's premiere was at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on November 19, 2013, and had a five-day limited release there, starting from November 22, before going into wide opening. Frozen was promoted heavily at several Disney theme parks including Disneyland's Fantasyland, Disney California Adventure's World of Color, Epcot's Norway pavilion, and Disneyland Paris' Disney Dreams! show. On November 6, 2013, Disney Consumer Products began releasing a line of toys and other merchandise relating to the film in Disney Store and other retailers. The teaser trailer for Frozen was released on June 18, 2013, and its official trailer was released on September 26, 2013.

On January 31, 2014, a sing-along issue of Frozen was released in 2,057 theaters in the United States. This version features on-screen lyrics, and viewers are invited to follow the bouncing snowflake and sing along with the songs from the film.

Home media
Frozen will be released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, and digital download on March 18, 2014. Bonus features for the Blu-ray release will include the making of the film, an inside look at how Disney tried to adapt the original fairy tale into an animated feature, four deleted scenes with introduction by the directors, the original theatrical short Get a Horse!, the film's teaser trailer, and "Let It Go" music videos by Demi Lovato, Martina Stoessel, and Marsha Milan Londoh.

Possible stage adaptation
Bob Iger, chairman and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company, stated in a January 2014 interview with Fortune that Disney Theatrical Productions is in early development of a Broadway stage musical adaptation of Frozen. No specific date has yet been set for this adaptation. "We're not demand­ing speed," Iger said. "We're demand­ing excellence." A microsite for the stage adaptation has been launched by Disney, where users can sign up to get email updates on the musical.

Video games
A video game titled Frozen: Olaf's Quest was released on November 19, 2013 for Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS. Developed by 1st Playable Productions and published by GameMill Entertainment, it takes place after the events of the film. In the game, Olaf must use his unique snowman abilities to try and stay in one piece throughout 60 levels. Anna and Elsa were released as figurines for the toy-based video game Disney Infinity on November 26, 2013. Additionally, Disney Mobile released a match-three game titled Frozen Free Fall for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone platforms. It takes place in the kingdom of Arendelle and closely follows the original story of the film, in which players can team up with Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Hans, and Pabbie to match puzzles with the help of each character's special power-ups. Six mini games can be played on the Disney website.

Box office
Frozen has earned $378,795,613 in North America, as of February 18, 2014, and $579,700,000 in other countries as of February 16, 2014, for a worldwide total of $958,495,613. It is the twenty-third highest-grossing film, the fourth highest-grossing animated film, the third highest-grossing 2013 film, the second highest-grossing 2013 animated film, the second highest-grossing non-sequel animated film, and the second highest-grossing animated film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, behind only The Lion King. The film earned $110.6 million worldwide on its opening weekend. Excluding re-releases, it is the highest-grossing non-sequel animated film in North America, outside North America and worldwide.

Frozen became Fandango's top advance ticket seller among original animated films, ahead of previous record-holder Brave, and became the top-selling animated film in the company's history in late January 2014. The sing-along version of the film later topped the best-selling list of the movie ticketing service again for three days. Frozen opened on Friday, November 22, 2013, exclusively at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood for a five-day limited release and earned $342,839 before its wide opening on Wednesday, November 27, 2013. During the three-day weekend it earned $243,390, scoring the seventh largest per-theater average. On the opening day of its wide release, the film earned $15.2 million (including $800,000 from Tuesday previews) and set a record for the highest pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday opening, ahead of Tangled ($11.9 million). It was also the second largest pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday among all films, behind Catching Fire ($20.8 million). The film finished in second place over the traditional three-day weekend (Friday-to-Sunday) with $67.4 million, setting an opening weekend record among Walt Disney Animation Studios films. It also scored the second largest opening weekend among films that did not debut at #1. Among films that opened during Thanksgiving, it set new records; three-day ($67.4 million from Friday to Sunday) and five-day ($93.6 million from Wednesday to Sunday). It also achieved the second largest three-day and five-day Thanksgiving gross among all films, behind Catching Fire. During its second weekend of wide release, Frozen declined 53% to $31.6 million, but jumped to first place, setting a record for the largest post-Thanksgiving weekend, ahead of Toy Story 2 ($27.8 million). It became the first film since Avatar to reach first place in its sixth weekend of wide release (January 3–5, 2014) with $19.6 million. Frozen also achieved the third largest fifth and sixth weekends of wide release, as well as the fourth largest seventh, eighth, and tenth weekends.
 * North America

In North America, Frozen is the twenty-third highest-grossing film, the third highest-grossing 2013 film, the fifth highest-grossing animated film, the highest-grossing 2013 animated film, the third highest-grossing non-sequel animated film, and the second highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film (after The Lion King). Excluding re-releases, it has achieved the highest-grossing initial run among non-sequel animated films (a record previously held by Finding Nemo) and among Walt Disney Animation Studios films (a record previously held by The Lion King). However, due to ticket price inflation and 3-D surcharges, The Lion King still has a higher attendance.

Frozen is the twenty-ninth highest-grossing film, the fifth highest-grossing animated film, the fourth highest-grossing 2013 film, the highest-grossing original animated film and the highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film. It had its debut on the same weekend as its wide North American release and earned $16.7 million from sixteen foreign markets. Overall, its largest opening weekends occurred in China (Wednesday-to-Sunday opening of $14.1 million), Russia and the CIS ($11.9 million, including previews from previous weekend), where the film set an opening-weekend record among Disney animated films (ahead of Tangled) and non-sequel animated films, and France and the Maghreb region (Wednesday-to-Sunday opening of $9.16 million). It set an opening-weekend record among animated films in Sweden. In total earnings, it is the highest-grossing animated film of all time in South Korea and Denmark,. Additionally in South Korea, Frozen is the second-highest film in terms of attendance, behind only Avatar. It is also the highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film in at least 45 territories, including the Latin America region (as well as specifically in Mexico and Brazil), the UK, Ireland and Malta, Russia and the CIS, Ukraine, Norway, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and China. Frozen topped the box office outside North America in its seventh weekend (January 10–12, 2014), with $27.8 million.
 * Outside North America

Critical response
Frozen received widespread critical acclaim, with several critics comparing the film favorably to the films of the Disney Renaissance, particularly The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. The film was praised for its visuals, themes, musical numbers, screenplay, and voice acting, especially of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, and Josh Gad. The "Let It Go" musical sequence was repeatedly singled out for praise, with some critics calling it one of the best film sequences of the year. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 89% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 179 reviews, with an average score of 7.8/10, making it the highest-rated family film in 2013. The site's consensus reads: "Beautifully animated, smartly written, and stocked with singalong songs, Frozen adds another worthy entry to the Disney canon." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 74 based on 43 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews." CinemaScore gave Frozen a rare "A+" on an A+ to F scale, based on polls conducted during the opening weekend. Surveys conducted by Fandango among 1,000 ticket buyers showed that 75% of purchasers have seen the film at least once, and 52% have seen it twice. It was also pointed out that 55% of audiences identified Let It Go as their favorite song, while Do You Want to Build a Snowman and For the First Time in Forever held proportions of 21% and 9%, respectively. Frozen was named the seventh best film of 2013 by Richard Corliss of Time and Kyle Smith of The New York Post.

Alonso Duralde of The Wrap hailed the film as "the best animated musical to come out of Disney since the tragic death of lyricist Howard Ashman, whose work on The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast helped build the studio’s modern animated division into what it is today." He also elaborated that "while it lags the tiniest bit on its way to the conclusion, the script...really delivers; it offers characters to care about, along with some nifty twists and surprises along the way." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter observes Frozen as a true musical and wrote "You can practically see the Broadway musical Frozen is destined to become while watching Disney's 3D animated princess tale." McCarthy described the film as "energetic, humorous and not too cloying, as well as the first Hollywood film in many years to warn of global cooling rather than warming, this tuneful toon upgrades what has been a lackluster year for big studio animated fare and, beginning with its Thanksgiving opening, should live up to box office expectations as one of the studio's hoped-for holiday-spanning blockbusters." Kyle Smith of the New York Post awarded the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and praised the film as "a great big snowy pleasure with an emotionally gripping core, brilliant Broadway-style songs and a crafty plot. Its first and third acts are better than the jokey middle, but this is the rare example of a Walt Disney Animation Studios effort that reaches as deep as a Pixar film." Scott Mendelson of Forbes enthused; "Frozen is both a declaration of Disney’s renewed cultural relevance and a reaffirmation of Disney coming to terms with its own legacy and its own identity. It’s also a just plain terrific bit of family entertainment."

The Los Angeles Times extolled the film's ensemble voice talent and elaborate musical sequences, and declared Frozen as "a welcome return to greatness for Walt Disney Animation Studios." Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "B+" grade and labeled it as a "squarely enchanting fairy tale that shows you how the definition of what's fresh in animation can shift." Richard Corliss of Time also lauded the film, writing that, "It's great to see Disney returning to its roots and blooming anew: creating superior musical entertainment that draws on the Walt tradition of animation splendor and the verve of Broadway present." Richard Roeper acclaimed the film as an "absolute delight from start to finish." Both Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune and Stephen Holden of The New York Times praised the film's characters and musical sequences, which also drew comparisons to the theatrics found in Wicked. Emma Dibdin of Digital Spy awarded the film five out of five stars and called the film "a new Disney classic" and "an exhilarating, joyous, human story that's as frequently laugh-out-loud funny as it is startling and daring and poignant." Hot on the heels of the 90th anniversary, it's impossible to imagine a more perfect celebration of everything Disney is at its best." Frozen was also praised in Norwegian Sámi media as showcasing Sámi culture (which was earlier attempted to be eradicated by the Norwegian state) to a broad audience in a good way. Composer Frode Fjellheim was lauded by Norwegian Sámi President Aili Keskitalo for his contribution to the film, during the President's 2014 New Year's speech.

However, the film was not without its criticisms. Scott Foundas of Variety, was not as equally impressed with the film, but nevertheless commended the film's voice acting and technical artistry: "The tactile, snow-capped Arendelle landscape, including Elsa’s ice-castle retreat is Frozen's other true marvel, enhanced by 3D and the decision to shoot in widescreen – a nod to the CinemaScope richness of Sleeping Beauty and Lady and the Tramp." The Seattle Times gave the film two out of four stars, stating that "While it is an often gorgeous film with computer-generated fjords and ice sculptures and castle interiors, the important thing that glues all this stuff together — story — is sadly lacking." Joe Williams of St. Louis Post-Dispatch also criticized the story as the film's weakest point. Writing on Roger Ebert's website, Christy Lemire gave a mixed review, awarding the film two-and-a-half stars out of four. Lemire praised the visuals and the performance of "Let It Go", as well as the positive messages Frozen sends. However, she referred to the film as "cynical" and criticized it as an "attempt to shake things up without shaking them up too much."

Portrayal of female emotions
Allegations of sexism occurred  following a statement from head of animation for Frozen, Lino DiSalvo:

Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, because they have to go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty and they're very sensitive too—you can get them off a model very quickly. So, having a film with two hero female characters was really tough, and having them both in the scene and look very different if they're echoing the same expression; that Elsa looking angry looks different from Anna being angry.

Some media commentators took this to mean that a difficulty exists due to a limited range of facial variation for recent Disney female animated characters because of the need to keep them "pretty". A Disney spokesperson told Time that DiSalvo's quote was widely misinterpreted stating that he was "describing some technical aspects of CG animation and not making a general comment on animating females versus males or other characters". Director Jennifer Lee also expressed her sadness towards the case, explaining that his words were recklessly taken out of context, and that he was talking in very technical terms about CG animation. "It is hard no matter what the gender is. I felt horrible for him. He was so proud what achieved in the movie. We never had such sophisticated rigs (the skeletal structure of the figures used to model characters on a computer) to show awkwardness and grief on a face. I'm so proud of them." she stated.

Accolades
Frozen was nominated for various awards and won a number of them, mostly for the Best Animated Feature category, and recognition for the song "Let It Go". The film was nominated for two Golden Globes at the 71st Golden Globe Awards and won for Best Animated Feature, becoming the first Walt Disney Animation Studios film to win at this category. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), five Annie Awards (including Best Animated Feature) and two Critics' Choice Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for "Let It Go". It has received two Academy Award nominations (Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song), and other similar nominations at the Satellite Awards, and various critics' groups and circles.