The chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation wanted to get rid of the snowman after seeing one of the early cuts of the 2013 movie, which is now a multi-million-selling franchise.
- Dec 5, 2022
AceShowbiz - "Frozen (2013)" co-director Jennifer Lee wanted to remove Olaf from the film. The chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation was honored with the Distinguished Storyteller Award at the Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday night, December 4, where she made the confession upon being presented the award by Olaf himself, Josh Gad.
Jennifer began, "Josh is Olaf." She explained that after seeing one of the early cuts of the film, her "first" bit of feedback was, "Kill the snowman." However, Josh managed to win over the filmmaker with his performance as the hilarious snowman created by Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) in their childhood.
The 2013 movie swiftly became a multi-million-selling franchise, with the first film grossing more than $1.2 billion at the global box office. The 2019 sequel proved even more successful, raking in $1.450 billion.
Josh previously revealed that the project got off to a rocky start. He explained, "I'll never forget, six or seven months prior to the movie coming out, I was with (songwriter) Bobby Lopez ... so I said, 'How's the movie coming?' and he goes, 'Well, we just screened the movie and it's a mess.' "
The "Artemis Fowl" star recalled asking if the project could be rescued, when he was informed that "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" was being introduced into the 2013 movie. He was told by Bobby, "I hope so. Yeah, we're playing around with this idea now, like we need this moment where we really see the girls' affection for each other early. So we're playing with this song, that's called 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman?' "
