42

Disney Princess is a famous Disney franchise and most of Disney's famous princesses are part of it, including Merida from Brave and Rapunzel from Tangled. But why are Elsa and Anna from Frozen kept separate and not included in the franchise?

Why are Frozen's Elsa and Anna excluded from the Disney Princesses line?

Improve this question
7
  • According to french wikipedia they are actually part of disney princess fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsa_(Disney) last line of the first paragraph Elsa et sa sœur Anna font partie de la franchise des Princesses Disney.
    – chicken burger
    Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 14:49
  • 17
    The real question: Why isn't Princess Leia a Disney Princess?
    – The Unknown Dev
    Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 18:02
  • 1
    Elsa and Anna aren't the only ones excluded. There are many princesses not included. This is a marketing thing.
    – user25738
    Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 22:00
  • 1
    @AnkitSharma too old to be called princess is there a princess age limit? I assumed they only stopped being a princess when A: They became queen or B: Well lets just say something really bad happened to them.
    – Y12K
    Commented Dec 28, 2017 at 8:36
  • 1
    @Ankit: may I invite you to take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Princess Anne?
    – David Thomas
    Commented Dec 28, 2017 at 11:46

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
37

Being a Disney Princess is not just a matter of being a princess from a Disney property, it's a question of marketing. The collection of Disney Princesses is used together in other materials, things like direct-to-video releases, books, games, etc. There's an article on a Disney Wikia that has some more details, but that's the gist of it.

Frozen was such a success, that Anna and Elsa got their own marketing segment: Disney Frozen. At some point, the popularity of the sisters may go down and one or both may get rolled into the "Princess" marketing machine.

Improve this answer
5
  • 2
    Can't imagine they'd get moved separately - their stories and characters are far too closely tied.
    – brichins
    Commented Dec 26, 2017 at 22:56
  • 2
    @brichins You do realize that you're responding to a claim about a "marketing machine" with a point about "stories and characters", right?
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 19:03
  • 4
    The things to be marketed are in fact characters of a story. The story of the characters will affect the marketing because it is the story that creates the demand in the marketplace. This is not to explicitly support the comment, necessarily, but you shouldn't dismiss it like that.
    – Segfault
    Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 20:08
  • 1
    @Segfault If indeed the primary or only marketable aspect of the characters is the relationship between them (as is probably the case for, say, Timon and Pumba), then sure, the marketing machine will probably recognize that. But I'm not sure that's true in this case.
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented Dec 28, 2017 at 3:59
  • 1
    To quote from RBTI: They're "from the other studio"............. :)
    – MissouriSpartan
    Commented Aug 27, 2019 at 20:50
39

There is no official word from Disney, but I can say these two things for facts:

  • Elsa is a Queen. So, making her a Princess would be almost impossible.
  • Elsa and Anna represent 25% of all Disney merchandising sales. Twenty five percent. Keeping them separate from all other Disney Princesses is probably the best move financially.
Improve this answer
10
  • 12
    Well, Elsa was a princess for several years, until her parents died...
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 26, 2017 at 14:29
  • 9
    True, which is why making her a Princess again would be a step backwards.
    – Johnny Bones
    Commented Dec 26, 2017 at 14:35
  • 25
    Anyway, your other point appears to be correct: She was supposed join the Disney Princess line up with Anna, but due to the "Frozen" franchise being so successful Disney decided that it wasn't necessary to add Anna and Elsa to Disney Princess.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 26, 2017 at 14:39
  • 57
    Elsa being a queen is the kind of technicality that Disney has readily ignored in the past. Pocahontas didn't have the concept of monarchy, and Mulan wasn't even her own country's equivalent of a monarch's daughter.
    – GGMG-he-him
    Commented Dec 26, 2017 at 19:34
  • 8
    Source for your revenue statistic? Wikipedia says (in the [last paragraph of the relevant section]((en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_(franchise)#Merchandise))) they had a 22% growth in revenue (over previous year) for the quarter that the movie came out, and that Frozen was the largest contributor, but I'd be interested to see an authoritative source with more details.
    – brichins
    Commented Dec 26, 2017 at 23:19
2

My answer is in line with the previous. I just wanted to mention that SuperCarlinBrothers have researched and made a video about this particular issue but in short, Frozen is just a powerhouse of a franchise on its own without the need for them to be Princesses.

There is a great chart at the 3:45 mark which shows that Frozen would account for 25% of the total ticket sales if added to the combined total of the other films. Most other princesses come in at around 8% - 15% each.

At the time they made that video, Frozen's merchandising sales were the 3rd largest behind Star Wars and Cars. They simply outclass the other princesses in terms of their value.

Improve this answer
2
  • I wonder whether Frozen merchandise is really more popular than that of past films, or if the current rates are mostly due to timing. Disney marketing only started pushing Princess-specific merchandise about 15 years ago, and Frozen and Tangled are the only well-received Modern Era princess movies made since then.
    – brichins
    Commented Dec 28, 2017 at 18:02
  • I would expect the Classic/Renaissance princesses have cumulatively sold as much (or more) than Frozen, but that most kids received Classic princess items years ago, either new or inherited from older relatives. Frozen is brand-new so there's no second-hand market yet, so buying new directly from Disney-licensed sources is basically the only option.
    – brichins
    Commented Dec 28, 2017 at 18:05
-3

I think Anna would be more qualified to be an official Disney Princess than Elsa. One of the requirements I heard about was that they had to have an animal companion. While INITIALLY Sven was only Kristoff's companion, it can be argued that Sven became Anna's companion as well once Anna chose to be with Kristoff over Hans qualifying her as one. But still, she's not until Disney says she is since they're using the term as a title rather than a definition.

Improve this answer
1
  • Welcome to Movies.SE! This doesn't really answer the question until the last sentence; you should edit it to focus on why they aren't Disney princesses, rather than why Anna should be.
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Aug 27, 2019 at 19:06

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .