‘Frozen’ To Make TV Debut This Month

Just when you finally got the song “Let It Go” out of your head comes news that the animated movie where it originates, Frozen, will be coming to the small screen later this month. In a bit of an overkill, late last year, Disney announced that the Academy Award-winning film would be headed our way via Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, and ABC. Today, Disney’s Freeform network (formerly ABC Family) announced in a press release that they have bragging rights to be the first channel to air Frozen.

Freeform has dubbed March 26 and 27 as “Frozen Weekend” and will feature the film alongside airings of Disney/Pixar’s UP, the Easter Bunny movie, HOP and Disney’s Dumbo. The scheduling is as follows.

Saturday, March 26:

• UP – 5:45
• Frozen – 8:00 p.m.
• HOP – 10:30 p.m.

Sunday, March 27:

• Up – 5:30 p.m.
• Frozen – 7:30 p.m.
• HOP – 10:00 p.m.
• Dumbo – 12:30 p.m.

Of all the Disney properties to choose from, the Freeform network seems like an odd fit since it is striving to become “edgy” and even controversial with its viewers. Elsa and Anna’s sisterhood is as squeaky clean as it gets. If your family misses the special airings of the film, don’t worry. Frozen will most certainly wind up on each of the other networks shortly.

This news comes just one week after announcing that Disney Channel is currently working on a regular animated series based on the movie Tangled, and the Disney HD will be trying out a new version of DuckTales. When you include the new live-action adaptations of Disney’s popular animated films like Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast, it is clear that Disney sees the value of its original properties.

In other recent Frozen news, ABC has announced that the network will broadcast a Frozen holiday special. Here’s the good news: The unnamed project will be a fully-animated short featuring Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven. The special will be directed by Emmy Award-winning directors Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton, who are the brains and brawn behind two of ABC’s favorite original Christmas specials, Prep & Landing and Prep & Landing: Operation Secret Santa. It is being produced by Roy Conli (Big Hero 6) and, of course, will include all of the familiar voices from Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, and others. The bad news is that it will not air until Christmas 2017.

Frozen was released in theaters in 2013, where its popularity helped make it the highest-grossing animated feature ever released. The film made more than $1.27 billion in global box office sales and with good reason. Loved by fans and critics both, Frozen has received numerous honors, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award, a PGA Award, five Annie Awards, and two Grammy Awards. And that is all from just the movie.

The soundtrack for Frozen reached quadruple platinum, and the film’s anthem “Let It Go” stayed on the top 5 on the Billboard 200 chart for a whopping 33 weeks and has sold over 10 million units worldwide.

With the movie’s incredible popularity, Disney couldn’t get the short Frozen Fever out soon enough. The short featured Elsa and Anna wearing different outfits than the original film, so even more merchandise could be created.

But how much Frozen is too much? A new Frozen ride is being worked on in the Norway Pavilion at EPCOT theme park, Disneyland will soon be offering live Frozen stage shows while a Broadway version is being worked on in New York. Of course, all of these projects will be done before Frozen 2 arrives in theaters at a to-be-determined date.

[Image via Walt Disney Animation]