‘Frozen II’ on Track for $100 Million-Plus Opening, Biggest for Animated Film Outside of Summer

The first round of tracking for Disney’s “Frozen II” arrived on Thursday, and as expected, it is huge. Early estimates are predicting that Anna and Elsa’s return will bring the first $100 million-plus opening for an animated film released outside of the summer. The first “Frozen,” released on Thanksgiving weekend in 2013, had a three-day opening of $67.4 million and a five-day opening of $93.6 million. It went on to leg out to $400 million domestic, $1.27 billion worldwide, and become Disney’s most lucrative in-house IP with countless billions made in merchandise. With that in mind, “Frozen II” is coming into theaters with extreme amounts of pre-release awareness from audiences, so much so that Disney moved the film’s release to before Thanksgiving weekend. If it meets tracking projections, it will rank among the top 10 highest November openings of all-time — the record belongs to “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” with $158 million — and shatter the opening record for Walt Disney Animation Studios. That studio record currently belongs to “Zootopia” with $75 million. “Frozen II” follows Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Olaf as they venture far beyond Arendelle to investigate a new threat to their home. To stop it, Elsa will have to discover where her ice powers came from and find a way to become even stronger. “Frozen” directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck return along with original voice cast Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, and Josh Gad. Newcomers to the cast include Sterling K. Brown, Evan Rachel Wood, Alfred Molina and Martha Plimpton.