Few Disney movies (outside of the Pixar realm) have generated as much excitement in recent history as Frozen, and Disney is looking to cash in. The company confirmed on Monday that it will bring a version of the hit animated film to Broadway in musical form. You can tell that "cash in" is the right term because Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger made the confirmation during an interview with Fortune magazine.
Frozen has proven its worthiness of a musical version thanks to the high sales of its original motion picture soundtrack album. The record sold 165,000 copies during the previous charting week, placing it atop the Billboard 200, and displacing Beyoncé in the process. Although numbers from this week's charts aren't official yet, Billboard has hinted that Frozen might maintain the top spot. Even more impressive is that the album has sold more copies in each week following its release six weeks ago. The only thing outdoing the soundtrack's sales is the film's ticket sales, which have grosses nearly $670 million thus far.
Although no date's been given for when to expect such a thing, all the pieces are essentially in place already. The score for the film was co-written by Tony winner Robert Lopez, who performed a similar task for Avenue Q and Book of Mormon. This might be a stretch, but one of the film's major characters, Elsa, is played by Idina Menzel (a.k.a. the original Elphaba in Wicked). She's a huge Broadway star, but if anyone's going to pick up her tab, it'll be Disney.
The animation studio has seen a number of its '90s hits become Broadway attractions-including The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and The Beast-thanks to lyrics and melodies that become embedded in culture.
