'Frozen 2' Spoilers, Release Date: Director Teases New Songs, Characters and More Development Updates
"Frozen 2" is gradually taking shape with a possible new song or two to set to be the new "Let It Go" already in place.
In an interview with Variety during the opening of the "Frozen" Broadway musical, director and screenwriter Jennifer Lee revealed that she is currently on the second draft of the highly-anticipated sequel.
She teased that her team has already done "amazing stuff" on "Frozen 2" and that they already have a couple of songs "that are blowing my mind."
"We do about six screenings that we hand draw, and so I'm on the second draft, second screening. There's no shortcut. What we have today hopefully will be 10 percent of what we have when it opens," she went on to say.
The new songs should give fans the opportunity to learn more about the Arendelle sisters in "Frozen 2" as well as their parents, who died at sea during the storm in the 2013 original.
Songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez teased, "We know the girls a lot better now. We've gone a lot deeper into their heads. We know the parents a lot better."
Together with fellow songwriter Robert Lopez, Anderson-Lopez has recorded a new song for "Frozen 2" with cast member Kristen Bell, who plays the role of Princess Anna.
Anderson-Lopez and Lopez understandably played coy about spilling details about the music or story in "Frozen 2," but they did reveal that the group of sylvan "hidden folk" inspired by Scandinavian folklore in the Broadway might be featured in the sequel as well.
"We've thought a lot more about those hidden folk," Anderson-Lopez said. "That's all I'm going to say," the songwriter added.
This is hardly the only influence of the stage musical to the movie though. Lee said that bringing the franchise to the theater has shaped they way they work on "Frozen 2" as well, especially their approach to the music.
"There's this really fluid thing going on that we didn't know about in the beginning as we were getting to know each other. We learned this wonderful sort of chicken-and-egg back and forth. Even for the film, we're building it like a musical, where the story and songs are intertwined and matter to each other," Lee, who also wrote the book for the musical, said.
The sweeping success of the original film, which is hailed the highest-grossing animated film of all time, has put pressure on the team to make sure "Frozen 2" is on par, if not even better.
After the standard set by "Let It Go," which went on to receive awards and be performed and played the globe years after the film's initial release, creating a new song that will be as big a hit as that is no easy feat, which is why Lee's team and the cast are taking their time.
Bell has said in the past that they are making the effort and time to put "Frozen 2" together because they want it to be live up to its predecessor.
"Frozen 2" is set to hit the cinemas Nov. 27, 2019.