There’s a chill in the air – and the sharp scent of money. It was reported this week that the three stars of the Disney animations Frozen and Frozen 2 – Kristin Bell, Idina Menzel and Josh Gad – are being paid $60m apiece to return for two more sequels. The Wrap, breaking the news, describes it as a “landmark deal that’s among the highest in animation history”.
In the scheme of things, of course, we’re talking chump change: the first two Frozen films earned Disney nearly $3bn in box office takings alone, with merchandise sales of more than $10bn. And rehiring these actors is the safe choice too, an effort by Disney to re-create the original lucrative formula as faithfully as possible, to avoid removing any pillar of Frozen’s success that may have been load-bearing. But it’s nonetheless a significant development for the world of voice-acting – a sphere of the entertainment industry that’s facing a particular set of threats, after three tumultuous decades of transformation.
