Frozen 3 gets official release date for Thanksgiving 2027

Concept art for forthcoming animated film shows Elsa and Anna on horses accompanied by snowman Olaf

Frozen 3 finally has an official theatrical release date: 24 November 2027.

Walt Disney Animation’s chief creative officer Jennifer Lee shared the concept art for Frozen 3 at D23 on 9 August and implied that Frozen 4 was in the works as well.

Frozen 3 was initially scheduled for release in 2026 but the animated film was pushed back due to the Covid pandemic and the SAG-AFTRA strikes. It will now be released for Thanksgiving in 2027.

Frozen, starring Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel as orphaned royal sisters Anna and Elsa, first released in 2013 and earned $1.28bn at the box office. Frozen 2 released in 2019 and made $1.45bn.

Frozen 2 held the record for the highest-grossing animated film in history until Inside Out 2 surpassed it in July this year.

“There were a lot of questions coming out of Frozen 2,” Lee said at D23. “It will take two films to answer them.”

The concept art showed both Elsa and Anna on horses, accompanied by the snowman Olaf, voiced by Josh Gad.

Although Lee did not confirm Frozen 4, Disney CEO Bob Iger had teased the film on Good Morning America in November 2023.

“Frozen 3 is in the works and there might be a Frozen 4 in the works too,” he said.

“But I don’t have much to say about those films right now. Jenn Lee, who created the original Frozen and Frozen 2, is hard at work with her team at Disney animation on not one but actually two stories.”

Frozen inspired the popular musical adaptation Frozen the Musical on the West End. The show, which has been running at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane since the summer of 2021, will shut its doors on 8 September.

The adaptation follows a similar storyline to the original film: Queen Elsa’s hidden powers plunge the land of Arendelle into an eternal winter, so her sister Anna sets out to find her and save the kingdom before it is too late. But the storm rages on and both sisters must learn a valuable lesson to stop it.

In The Independent’s review of Frozen the musical, Ava Wong Davies writes that the stage adaptation “is intended to feel as comforting and familiar as one of Olaf’s warm hugs”.