‘Frozen’ Trailer Lawsuit: Disney Denies Stealing From Short Film
A recent Frozen trailer lawsuit claims that Disney directly stole the premise of an independent short film to use as a Frozen teaser. Disney is completely denying any wrongdoing.
It’s bound to happen. You make a feature length animated movie that sells as well as Disney’s Frozen, and someone on the outside is going to want a piece of it. The question posed by the lawsuit is whether or not this outsider actually deserves compensation for what appears to be an alleged copy of the premise of a short film.
The animated short in question involves a snowman who accidentally loses his carrot nose. Along comes a gang of rabbits who obviously see a free meal and make way for the carrot. A race ensues and the rabbits win, but they see the sad snowman without a nose and have a change of heart, giving him back the carrot.
Disney’s Frozen teaser appears to replace the rabbits with a moose.
The story of the short film is almost exactly what happens in Disney’s Frozen teaser. The Frozen trailer lawsuit states that the similarities are more than intentional, and downright theft. The Snowman was the name of the animated short film created by Neil Wrischnik and Kelly Wilson, the latter of whom is suing Disney for copyright infringement.
Disney has responded to the lawsuit, “The claim is utterly without merit and we will defend against it vigorously.”
It could easily be an inspiration on behalf of Disney’s animation crew or even a simple coincidence as well, since the short film existed before the trailer in question. Enough money has been earned on behalf of the movie Frozen that Kelly Wilson is willing to take the chance and legally discover if she should receive some form of compensation.
1 billion peoples’ worlds just came crashing down “@Slate: Lawsuit alleges Frozen stole from this animated short. http://t.co/jcyg7AD04g”
— Jacob Klopfenstein (@JFKlopfenstein) April 9, 2014
Something else that might support the Frozen trailer lawsuit is the fact that the film’s teaser appears to be misleading. Some might see nothing more than the trailer in question and think the movie is actually about a snowman fighting a moose for a carrot. That seems suspicious all by itself.
Kelly Wilson is hoping that if a judge sees the Frozen teaser and her short film The Snowman back to back, the similarities and misleading nature of the Disney blockbuster’s trailer will force the Walt Disney film company to pay her at least a portion of the billions the film has already made. There are enough themes and factors between the two that Wilson might just win.
Watch the Frozen teaser (above) and the short film The Snowman (click here) and see for yourself if Kelly Wilson’s Frozen trailer lawsuit could get Disney to back down, or if indeed it’s just a major coincidence.
