The day after Frozen won a Golden Globe for best animated film, Walt Disney CEO and chairman Bob Iger confirmed to Fortune that the company wants the unconventional princess story to become a Broadway musical.
Iger said Disney was currently in discussions to adapt the box office success for Broadway audiences, but declined to give a timeframe. “We’re not demanding speed,” he said. “We’re demanding excellence.”
Frozen is Disney’s biggest hit at the box office in almost 20 years. It was the number one all-time Disney animation debut and has grossed $669 million so far — and that’s before opening in huge markets like China or Japan. It will soon pass The Lion King in overall box office numbers.
The movie’s soundtrack is also the number one album on both Amazon and iTunes. Not since the days of Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast has Disney seen such commercial and critical success from a musical. (That estimation, of course, doesn’t include Pixar movies like Toy Story and Finding Nemo.)
The next obvious step, then, is to take the songs to Broadway. And that’s not all. Iger told Fortune that because the movie has “franchise potential” we can expect toys, clothes, theme park rides and even sequels based on the film’s characters.
[Fortune]