Why People Are Upset About 'Frozen' Short In 'Coco' Screenings
Disney and Pixar's animated feature, Coco, arrived in theaters on Wednesday, Nov. 22 along with the Frozen short film, Olaf's Frozen Adventure.
However, moviegoers have taken to social media to express their anger and frustration over the length of the short film, which is a mini-Frozen sequel to Josh Gad's snowman character.
In this day and age, moviegoers have a sigh of relief when a film's running time is under two hours. Given how movie tickets are burning a hole in people's pockets nowadays, it's only fair that moviemakers would want to give them their money's worth. However, the culture may not necessarily resonate with audiences.
How The Audience Reacts?
Disney and Pixar's latest release, Coco, is an animated musical that managed to beat Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment's superhero mash-up film, Justice League at the Thanksgiving Day box office.
The film earned an A+ rating from audiences on Cinemascore and has also been lauded by critics, so moviegoers showed up in huge numbers to watch the film over Thanksgiving weekend.
However, they later learned that they would have to sit through 21 minutes of the Frozen short film, Olaf's Frozen Adventure, before the movie and they weren't very happy about it. Many of the infuriated moviegoers even took to Twitter to express their anger.
"The FROZEN short before COCO unforgivably stretches the definition of "short," wrote one user.
"The seemingly endless, deeply mediocre Frozen 'short' they force you watch before CoCo is a hate crime," another fan tweeted.
Why Is 'Olaf's Frozen Adventure Long
Olaf's Frozen Adventure was originally planned as a 21-minute holiday TV special for the Disney-owned network ABC. The Christmas-themed short film is a follow-up to 2013 blockbuster hit, Frozen, and the Frozen Fever short, which accompanied Cinderella back in 2015.
One cannot legally watch the short film without paying to see Coco. Playing a film from the Frozen franchise before a Pixar original seems like an attempt made by Disney and Pixar to bridge into Frozen 2, which is slated to hit theaters on Nov. 27, 2019.
Like the original, Frozen 2 is expected to be a huge success and Disney's appears to be keeping audiences' interest alive in the series. However, it looks like the studio's plan to force Frozen short into the Coco experience may have backfired.
How To Avoid Watching The 'Frozen' Short
According to calculations carried out by Slate, one can avoid watching the 21-minute Frozen short feature, all the movie trailers, and a minute-long clip of Coco directors Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina talking about their film. They should arrive approximately 37 minutes after the designated show time.
