Disney’s Frozen producer reveals the film’s original ending – and it was VERY different
In earlier drafts, the main characters weren’t orphaned sisters – and Elsa was a villain who froze her heart after being left at the altar
IT made nearly £800m at the box office and featured possibly the catchiest song of all time.
But Disney’s Frozen producers have admitted that the hit film nearly ended very differently.
In earlier drafts, the main characters weren’t orphaned sisters – and Elsa was a villain who froze her heart after being left at the altar.
“When we started off, Anna and Elsa were not sisters. They weren’t even royal”, Peter Del Vecho told .
“Elsa was a self-proclaimed snow Queen, but she was a villain and pure evil – much more like the Hans Christian Andersen tale.”
Peter added that Elsa was originally conceived as a scorned woman, who was “stood up on her wedding day and froze her own heart so she would never love again”.
In the original draft the movie started with a prophecy – which referred to Elsa – that “a ruler with a frozen heart will bring destruction to the kingdom of Arendelle”.
Then in the film’s final scene Elsa created an army of snow monsters, causing the two-faced Prince Hans to trigger a massive avalanche, not caring that it put the whole of Arendelle in jeopardy.
Peter said: “Anna realises Elsa is their only hope, so she convinces her to use her powers to save the kingdom.
“The twist is that the prophecy from the beginning is actually not about Elsa, but about Hans – he’s the one with a metaphorical frozen heart because he’s an unfeeling sociopath.
“Elsa’s heart is then unfrozen allowing her to love again.”
The producers decided to change the ending as they felt like they’d “seen it before”.
Peter continued: “We had no emotional connection to Elsa – we didn’t care about her because she had spent the whole movie being a villain.”
Director Chis Buck and his wife writer Jennifer Lee then came up with the idea of making Elsa and Anna related.
“That led to making Elsa a much more dimensional sympathetic character, and instead of the traditional good vs. evil theme we had one that we felt was more relatable: Love vs. fear, and the premise of the movie became that love is stronger than fear,” said Peter.
The relationship between the two sisters was then used to come up with the film’s final twist, where it is Anna’s selfless act to rescue her sister that thaws Elsa’s heart.
Meanwhile, a key Frozen character made a cameo in Disney’s Moana – did you spot it?
While an iced-over lighthouse in Lake Michigan stunned fans as it looked just like Elsa’s magical ice palace.