‘Truly emotional’: Frozen films director on seeing world she imagined come alive at Hong Kong Disneyland

Jennifer Lee co-wrote and co-directed Frozen and Frozen 2. While in Hong Kong for the opening of Disneyland’s World of Frozen, she shared her thoughts

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A view of the world’s first theme park based on the “Frozen” films, a re-creation of Arendelle at Hong Kong Disneyland. Jennifer Lee, who co-wrote and co-directed both “Frozen” films, found seeing her creation brought to life “profound and truly emotional”. Photo: Hong Kong Disneyland

Fionnuala McHugh

Published: 7:45am, 10 Dec 2023Updated: 11:04am, 10 Dec 2023

As most parents in the developed world know, the 2013 Disney film Frozen has a song called “Let It Go”. It’s sung by Elsa, Queen of Arendelle and elder sister of Princess Anna, who during stressful moments has an inconvenient tendency to turn anything she touches into ice.

Elsa therefore abdicates royal responsibility and flees into the Arendellian mountains, where she simultaneously creates an ice palace and a show-stopping earworm. You’re probably humming it already. Let it go, let it go, turn away and slam the door …

It’s true, at first, Disney didn’t quite grasp that it was in possession of a new superpower. But Frozen’s popularity snowballed – it was 2013’s highest-grossing film, then the highest-grossing animated film ever, at the 2014 Academy Awards it won best original song and best animated feature, and soon factories in China could barely keep up with the demand for Elsa and Anna merchandise.

It became clear that there would be no door-slamming for the franchise, and when Frozen 2 was released, in 2019, it had the highest-grossing opening of any animated film. Frozen had now officially leapt beyond any public misconception that it was a mere cartoon – a word no one uses at Disney any more – and had joined mainstream cinematic existence.

Elsa in “Frozen”. It was 2013’s highest-grossing film, then the highest-grossing animated film ever. Photo: Disney

By 2020, the Journal of Psychology and Theology was publishing “Trauma, eco-spirituality, and transformation in Frozen 2: Guides for the Church and climate change.”

The creation of the world’s first Frozen-themed land, an exact re-creation of Arendelle, had been announced in November 2016. The fact that it would be at Hong Kong Disneyland – the smallest of the six Disneylands, the one that hadn’t been doing so well, the one set on a subtropical island – was a little surprising.