Frozen is coming to Storybrooke, but Idina Menzel (Wicked, Rent) and Kristen Bell (Assassin’s Creed, Reefer Madness, Veronica Mars, Heroes) are not. Once Upon a Time has already cast its live-action version of Anna and Elsa and its neither one. Now the show’s producers are opening up about why they didn’t cast Manzel and Bell.
Once Upon A Time executive producer Eddie Kitsis recently told E! Online that they didn’t even ask Kristen Bell or Idina Menzel to reprise their roles:
"We did not [go after them]."
Co-Executive producer Adam Horowitz further explained their reasons, adding:
"Those actors were so amazing, but it's their own thing. They should have their thing and what we're doing is separate from the movie. We're not trying to do a sequel to Frozen. We're trying to do our Once Upon a Time version of it and create our own little world and hope that fans of Frozen and fans of Once can enjoy it."
However, that is not to say that don’t love and adore Idina and Kristen, as Kitsis added:
"We're such fans of Idina and Kristen.We are such fans."
Horowitz went on to talk about the show’s big plans for the Frozen characters:
"Instead of trying to do a twist on the characters and changing them. We really wanted to make the characters like what they were in the movie, honor them and who they are and where they came from in the movie, but find a twist in how they interconnect into our Once Upon a Time world…For us, it's fun to find out what happens when Anna meets Rumpelstiltskin? What happens when the most hopeful person in the world meets the darkest person in the world?”
