Video: A new short set in the world of Frozen will debut in front of Coco, and in it, Olaf the snowman (Josh Gad) travels the world, collecting winter holiday traditions to share with Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel), who have none of their own.
Still from the trailer to Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, Disney / Pixar via YouTube
The shortened length makes sense if you remember that Olaf’s Frozen Adventure was originally meant to be a TV special. At 21 minutes, it’s exactly as long as it needs to be to fit into a 30-minute time slot with commercials.
Elsa and Anna barely figure at all in this trailer, showing up mostly to explain the set-up: They were separated, so they never got to create family traditions for the winter like everyone else. The bulk of the trailer is Olaf visiting various different families and learning what they do. There’s the obligatory comedy about how weird Christmas trees would be if you’ve never heard of them, and the one-second shot of a dreidel spinning so it can be properly classified as a “winter holiday” movie, rather than a Christmas one.
In an interview with EW, John Lasseter explained that everything, including the upcoming Broadway show, will naturally lead into Frozen 2.
In Frozen, they dearly loved each other but were separated, and now they’re back together and never going to close the doors again. But now what? What are they going to do with their first birthday? That’s Frozen Fever. Now, they have their first holiday season together. [That’s Olaf’s Frozen Adventure.] And then what? We go from there, and it fits in perfectly with Frozen 2.
It’s interesting to have this continuity between Frozen, Frozen Fever, Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, Frozen on Broadway… all of these projects really lead to Frozen 2 and this new story we’re creating that’s all, in a weird way, connected in the life of Anna and Elsa.
How much time will be passing between Frozen and its sequel? It seems like a fair amount, if it’s fitting all these firsts in between them.
Olaf’s Frozen Adventure comes to theatres along with Coco on December 26.