‘Once Upon A Time’ Adds ‘Frozen’ Villain To Season 4

Once Upon a Time is bringing another character from Disney’s Frozen to life, and his addition to the ABC series could definitely make life more difficult for Anna (Elizabeth Lail), Elsa (Georgina Haig), and Kristoff (Michael Foster).

According to TV Line, the third episode of season 4 will introduce viewers to a live-action version of Hans, the villain from Frozen. At the end of the animated movie, his fate was left up in the air. After deceiving Anna and Elsa and trying to steal the Arendelle throne, he was shipped back to his own kingdom to be punished by his brothers. Because he wasn’t killed off, it’s not that big of a shock that he’s going to pop up on Once Upon a Time.

The Hans character in Disney’s Frozen was an ambitious young prince willing to do whatever it took to become king. This included breaking a girl’s heart and attempting to kill her sister. He might be just the villain that Once needs now that the Wicked Witch is gone. He desperately wants his own kingdom to rule, so perhaps he’ll set his sights on Storybrooke or the Enchanted Forest. With Regina angry at Emma and nursing a broken heart, this could prove to be a fatal mistake.

At the end of season 3 of Once Upon a Time, it was revealed that Elsa was imprisoned in Rumpel’s vault. This imprisonment would obviously prevent her from being around to protect Arendelle, so perhaps Once will show Hans taking advantage of her absence by taking control of the kingdom. This would make Elsa and Anna’s attempt to get it back the main focus of the season 4 story arc.

The role of Hans hasn’t been cast yet, and some TV Line readers have intriguing choices for the role. Suggestions include Chuck star Zachary Levi (he voiced Flynn Rider in the movie Tangled) and True Blood star Luke Grimes. Grimes is currently working with former Once Upon a Time star Jamie Dornan on the Fifty Shades of Grey movie.

Showrunners Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis have a habit of casting former Lost actors and actresses on Once, so perhaps Blake Bashoff will have a shot at landing the role. He has freckles just like Hans, and he could pull off the prince’s ginger hair.

Speaking of Lost stars, it’s possible that Hans actually won’t be the new Big Bad on Once Upon a Time. As The Inquisitr previously reported, Lost actress Elizabeth Mitchell is set to join the cast, and she’ll either be playing Elsa and Anna’s mother or an evil Snow Queen similar to the villain in the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale that Disney’s Frozen is based on.

Frozen paid homage to Anderson’s story by briefly featuring two servant characters named after Kai and Gerda, the young protagonists in the fairy tale. Some Frozen viewers were disappointed that the movie wasn’t more like the fairy tale, so perhaps the Once Upon a Time writers will try to appease them by including more elements from the original story. Introducing a sinister Snow Queen would be one way to do this.

The Once Frozen arc might sound an awful lot like a sequel to the movie, but Edward Kitsis insisted that it is not during an interview with Entertainment Weekly:

“We’re not looking to do a sequel, we’re just looking to bring them into our world for a fun story arc. So character and storywise, we just wanted to honor the characters. And with how recent the movie is, that was important to Disney as well.”

He also said that the direction Once Upon a Time is going will not harm a Frozen sequel if Disney ever chooses to do one, and he revealed that no Frozen characters will remain on Once after the story arc ends. However, according to E! Online, ABC president Paul Lee hinted at the possibility of a Frozen spin-off series:

“Eddy and Adam are endlessly inventive, so they have glints in their eyes of stories that they can spin for years to come. So it certainly doesn’t rule out their ability or my ability to go beyond Once.”

Would you like to see more of Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and Hans in a Once Upon a Time spin-off, or do you think the show would go the way of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland?

[Photo courtesy of Disney.com]