With 2019 lagging almost 7% behind 2018’s year-to-date box office receipts and a mere five-and-a-half weeks left in the year, theaters and studios are looking to Disney to help save the day. And of course, the House of Mouse is sending in some of their heaviest hitters. The first of those arrives this weekend, with Frozen 2 heating up the pre-holiday box office, a film that proves even merely so-so Disney movies still look and feel great.
There’s no doubt Frozen 2 will open atop the weekend box office, easily north of $100 million and probably closer to at least $125 million range. If audience word of mouth is strong enough, it could even hit $150 million.
The first Frozen opened to $94 million in North America back in 2013, on its way to a $400 million domestic gross and a huge $1.2+ billion worldwide. That film also earned terrific critical reviews to the tune of a 90% score at Rotten Tomatoes, and a rare perfect A+ grade from audiences via Cinemascore, which is all of course precisely why it topped the billion dollar mark.
Frozen 2 has so far received mostly very positive reviews, with a 78% Rotten Tomatoes score as of this writing. That’s obviously lower (so far) than the original, but still well within “Certified Fresh” range. As long as audience grades for Frozen 2 are as good or better than the critical score, that should be more than enough to ensure the sequel is another billion-plus earner.
The odds of audience reactions being even more positive than critics are pretty high. That’s generally true of these types of popular films, and it’s going to be especially true in this case, for a few reasons I’ll get to in a moment when I start my full review.
Suffice to say, the lowest end of outcomes this weekend is a domestic bow of $95 million, the highest-end somewhere in the neighborhood of $150+ million. Either way, it should easily clear $300+ million stateside, while international markets cough up enough additional revenue to push Frozen 2 beyond $1 billion.
If all manner of unforeseen problems arise and cause an outcome on the lower side of expectations, I think the film will still cross $1 billion. Should it prove more popular than expected (which is hard to imagine, but try anyway), it might climb toward $1.5 billion. But I don’t expect a higher-end outcome, since I believe there will be a lot more front-loading for Frozen 2 and a shorter overall theatrical run as the holiday and award seasons get going. I think it will wind up somewhere between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion, depending on the domestic/foreign split in total box office revenue.
Keep those numbers in mind as I talk about my reaction to this film – it’s going to be one of the year’s biggest films, it will enter the coveted $1 billion club of all-time blockbusters, and it will get nominated and awarded in various categories for music and animation. Those are all obviously admirable things, and are signs of prestige and great success. But they aren’t necessarily signs of living up to potential, so much as a sign that Disney can do this in its sleep, and sometimes even a good film still feels like somebody dozed off at the wheel.
So, knowing Frozen 2 is inevitably going to be a blockbuster hit, and knowing it will rightly be enjoyed and well-liked – even loved – by a great many viewers, I must admit that while I liked the film and recognize precisely why it will be popular, I also think it’s a come-down from the complexity of story and character in the original film.
Yes, Frozen 2 looks amazing, there’s plenty of good jokes, the songs are pleasing enough to the ear, and we get to spend time with characters we like. But this is a case of the packaging disguising the fact there isn’t really as much inside as there appears to be.
The character arcs are fairly obvious and don’t amount to enough to be truly satisfying. There is no clear antagonist and instead just a shifting of suspicions and unmet expectations. It remains unclear why some of the magical happenings are taking place. There are no deeper character conflicts and emotional reversals. And there are no show-stopper musical numbers. So much of what made the original film so engrossing, then, is lacking in the sequel.
But despite those disappointments, Frozen 2 checks all of the boxes of being a good movie. Stepping outside of my own adult self, I am capable of seeing how it’s going to appeal to children and family audiences as fun, funny, familiar escapism. And there’s no shame in not being as great as the first film, since every new film can’t always be better than the last one.
It made a difference that I attended screening where people brought their young children. Beforehand, the kids warmed up in a lobby full of games, clothes, and jewelry inspired Frozen 2. They played Jam City’s nicely rendered Frozen Adventures mobile game, oohed and aahed at boots and jackets, and admired a necklace and bracelet designed based on the movie. Once the screening started, they laughed and sang and cheered all the way through. And every single time – especially the kid behind me whose uncontrollable giggles at Olaf’s gags had me cracking up – I was reminded who this film is mostly for, and how much a simple silly movie can still deliver magic felt all the way in the heart.
None of which erases Frozen 2’s flaws and shortcomings, even if the film’s packaging helps obscure those flaws a bit. But even a mid-range-quality Disney animated film is still going to look and sound spectacular, and it’s still going to be immensely entertaining to younger children. And if it’s not as good as its predecessor, it’s still well within the “good” range for kids, families, and anyone who loved the first film and is happy to spend some more time in that world.
Watching a film like this in a room full of laughing kids, it helps you feel a little like a kid again, too. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.
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