Most Disney movies are pretty successful, but few can hold a candle to ‘Frozen’, the loose adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s ‘The Snow Queen’ that won two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song for ‘Let It Go’ and is currently the highest grossing animated film of all time.  Disney can’t keep ‘Frozen’ merchandise in stock and the line to meet the two princesses Anna and Elsa at the Disney theme parks dwarfs those for even Space Mountain.

So it’s only natural that the ABC series ‘Once Upon A Time‘ (produced by Disney who also owns the network) is jumping on the bandwagon and bringing at least one of the princesses, the ice-powered Elsa to live action.  At the end of Sunday’s season finale, the white haired beauty was glimpsed emerging in the real world of ‘Storybrook’ and will surely play a major part when the fairy tale-themed series returns in the fall.

Elsa is just the latest Disney character to pop up on the series, although some characters hew closer to the classic fairy tales than to Disney’s interpretations. But in several cases, the characters on the show do borrow the names from the animated movies, including the Seven Dwarves, Mulan, Belle, Gaston and Lumier from ‘Beauty & The Beast, Aurora, Maleficent and Price Phillip from ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and Ariel, Prince Eric and Ursula from ‘The Little Mermaid’.

Executive producers Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis spoke up regarding the use of Elsa on the show.  Horowitz stated, “We are dealing with the world of ‘Frozen’. We are honored to be allowed to do it. We loved the movie. We fell in love with it when it came out last year like everyone did, and we want to do our best to do it justice.”

Kitsis added, “[What] we loved so much about the character of Elsa was that she was considered a villain but she never really was. She was misunderstood. That, on our show, speaks to us so strongly, that it was a toy we had to play with. It’s funny because I see lots of people [saying] ‘Oh! Did Disney ask them to do this?’ It’s quite the opposite. It’s actually quite hard to get these characters on the show. It’s not like you get a call from Mickey Mouse saying, ‘I want you to sell mermaids this week.’ It’s the opposite. It’s very hard to get these. We were very honored that Disney allowed us to take this toy off the shelf and let us play with it.”

Despite Elsa’s appearance from behind on this last episode, the part is actually still up for grabs.  Consider this Elsa a placeholder until the right actress can be found.  Kitsis said, “We’re trying our hardest to not think for two weeks, but when the two weeks is done and Memorial Day is done, then our first order of business will be who is Elsa.”

Check out the clip from the finale of ‘Once Upon A Time’ season three.  Elsa pops up around the 1:50 mark.

Are you excited to see the world of ‘Frozen’ adapted to TV?  Are you surprised to see such a relatively new character brought to the show?  And can Anna be far behind her frosty sister?

Source: THR