'Frozen 2' stars talk deleted scenes: 'Fifty percent of what we recorded got cut'

The stars of Frozen II say the Disney sequel changed so much during the three-year production that around half of everything they recorded for it ended up on the cutting room floor.

Along with the song that Sterling K Brown says he recorded for the film that didn’t make the cut, stars Josh Gad and Jonathan Groff – the voices of Olaf and Kristoff – say they both recorded songs that you don’t hear in the film.

“You record dialogue, songs... I would say fifty percent [of what we recorded] didn’t make it into the movie,” Gad explains to Yahoo in the video above.

“You’re recording for three years and it keeps adapting, it keeps changing. The story informs the directors what it wants to be, and so you do a lot of stuff that no longer tracks with the story that we’re telling.”

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The film picks up the tale of Princess Anna and Queen Elsa three years after the events of the first film, with the Arendelle royals still grappling with big questions about their past.

Filmmakers Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck headed up the story team at Disney Animation Studios for the sequel, and were essentially working with a blank canvas for where to take the sequel, but focussing on the motivations of the sisters helped to guide them along the way.

“It was really fun to go down [different] roads, but it always took away from the Anna Elsa story,” says director Chris Buck, “so we had to minimise that, but focus more on Anna and Elsa.”

As for the stuff that didn’t make it into the film, Idina Menzel – the voice of Elsa – describes the unused songs as “beautiful”, but she says the filmmakers weren’t precious about cutting stuff that didn’t serve the story.

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“They’re very humble in the way that they work,” Menzel tells us. “They don’t hold on to things for too long if it’s not working.”

Gad agrees. The Olaf actor, who will next be seen in Disney’s Artemis Fowl adaptation in 2020, says the filmmakers can be trusted to cut stuff that doesn’t serve a purpose.

“The best stuff generally always makes it into the film,” adds Gad. “

“There were definitely a lot of crazy things that I recorded that I’m sure were really funny in the moment that would have been hilarious had they been animated, but I always trust Chris and Jen to ultimately make the right decisions about what the most important storytelling moments are.”

Frozen II lands in cinemas on 22 November. The cast and directors explain how the plot of Frozen II was determined in our video below...