Disney had its biggest hit in years on its hands with "Frozen," the magical tale grossing over $1 billion worldwide and becoming a cultural touchstone that surprised everyone involved with the sheer level of its success.
Though there's been shorts, TV specials and rides based on the property, the full sequel to the film - confirmed a full year ago, hasn't seemingly made much progress in that time. Now, the first film's star Kristen Bell (Anna) has revealed to Collider that she starts recording dialogue for the film later this month:
"They've just written it and they're still doing tweaks, but I think we should be recording this month. The story is great, and they exude quality. What I know about that whole team is that they wouldn't just put something out to put it out. That's why it took them so long to even announce that we were doing a second one.
Generally when you have a first successful movie you want to make a second one. It took them a while because they wanted to figure out what story they needed to tell and what would be important and engaging and I think they found it."
Primary voice cast members like Idina Menzel (Elsa), Jonathan Groff (Kristoff) and Josh Gad (Olaf) are all expected to return, as are directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck and songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Has Bell recorded new music for it yet?
"No, not yet. We record all the time for different parks or different parks that open overseas, we'll do a mashup for the rides. So we actually get to go in - Josh [Gad] and Idina [Menzel], Jonathan [Groff] and I - all the time and record new bits of the music. When Epcot Center opens we'll record a bunch of new music. So we have little bits of Frozen in our life at all times, but I'm excited to get started on the new movie."
Disney has yet to set a release date for the sequel.