“Frozen” Is the First COVID Casualty for Disney Theatrical

Disney has no confidence that the audiences will return to Frozen when New York City Theater district opens up again. 

When Disney Theatrical Productions reopens the post-Broadway epidemic on Thursday, the Frozen stage adaptation will not return.

Frozen was the weakest of all the three-stage musicals from Disney in response to socially distant orders before Broadway came to a close in March based on the record-shattering film hit. 

While the Lion King and Aladdin are returning from the two other Broadway productions of the entertainment juggers, Disney has no confidence that the audiences will return to Frozen when New York City Theater district opens up again. 

In order to reduce its losses, Disney chose “let it go.” Instead.

“This difficult decision has been made for a number of reasons, but we believe that primarily three Disney products will be a number of topics to be successful in Broadway’s new landscape,” Thomas Schumacher, president of Disney Theatrical Productions, said in a letter to his staff.

Broadway is just one round for Disney Theatrical’s global company, which covers 29 stage productions around the world before the Coronavirus crisis. 

Frozen will not return to New York audiences and the musician’s North American tour company will resume when the restrictions are lifted. 

Disney is committed to The Lion King and Mary Poppins’ productions in London’s West End, as well as national tours of The Lion King in North America and Britain.

With international ticket records and a few Oscars, the Frozen franchise came to high hopes on Broadway in 2018, but the $30 million productions have never reached The Lion King’s staying power, making it eight shows a week on Broadway since 1997. 

The musical, which reimagines the story of the ice queen as a sister-in-law, received rave reviews from critics and received only three Tony nominations, none winning. Weekly ticket sales rose to $2.6 million, but by February 2020, they had reached $1 million.

The announcement that Frozen will not return is only an indication of what is to come for New York’s theatre industry soon after the epidemic. 

As the date for the reopening of the theatre doors is not yet known, producers have already been forced to re-evaluate the financial viability of long-planned projects. 

If a Disney product with name recognition cannot weather this storm, there may be little hope for smaller projects waiting in the wings.

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