Ruggels promised to have a full treatment for the film ready in just two weeks. “It’s great,” declared a triumphant Eisner. “The regular guy goes up there,” Ruggels continued, “he starts to unfreeze her… she melts.” Snow Queen concept art from the early 2000s “This is perfect,” Eisner exclaimed, apparently unaware that thin characterisation was the very issue that had plagued the project thus far. “When her suitors try to melt her heart, the Snow Queen freezes them. “The Snow Queen is a terrible bitch,” explained creative vice president Mary Jane Ruggels to Eisner. Stewart recalls the executive’s enthusiasm in his book Disneywar.
In 2003, towards the end of his tenure at the company, he met with the company’s feature animation team to discuss their upcoming slate of movies. Disney’s then-CEO Michael Eisner was a particular fan of the project. Throughout this period, interest in an adaptation of The Snow Queen remained high.
Collaboration with Broadway talent Howard Ashman and Alan Menken revitalised the lagging Disney brand, and Anderson’s Mermaid was quickly joined by musical classics such as Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. The release of The Little Mermaid in 1989 heralded the start of the second golden age of Disney animation the so-called Disney Renaissance. One of Anderson’s other characters proved more forthcoming. Despite her stunning appearance - “fair and beautiful, and dressed in garments of white gauze, which looked like millions of starry snow-flakes linked together” - this literary version of the Snow Queen simply did not lend herself to the silver screen. The Snow Queen has neither motive nor backstory, and does not even feature in the story’s climax she is a two-dimensional villain in a largely symbolic story. His plans fell through, however, running into the same thorny issue that would scupper Disney’s adaptation efforts for the next seven decades: the titular character herself. As early as 1943, Disney was in talks with Samuel Goldwyn regarding a collaborative film about the life and works of the beloved Danish author. Walt Disney himself saw the cinematic potential of The Snow Queen, the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale on which Frozen is based. It represents a turning point in the film’s 70-year journey to the silver screen, a milestone in CGI animation technology, a tribute to a late Broadway icon, and - some say - the start of a second Disney renaissance. A power-ballad delivered by singer Idina Menzel, the show-stopper’s stirring arrival midway through Frozen signals more than just the end of Act One. But more remarkable still is the story behind the film’s creation, and - in particular - the role of the aforementioned song in the film’s protracted development. ‘Let It Go’, the film’s centrepiece anthem, won the Oscar for Best Original Song and has racked up more than a quarter of a billion views on YouTube. The album has topped the Billboard charts for 13 weeks and counting, the best performance for a film soundtrack since Titanic in 1998. The achievements of Frozen’s soundtrack are perhaps more remarkable still. This accomplishment also makes it the fifth highest-grossing film in cinema history. Since its release in November 2013, Frozen has surpassed two decades’ worth of hits by Pixar, DreamWorks & Disney, and grossed over $1.2 billion in worldwide box office revenue. Frozen is the most successful animated film of all time.
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