The songwriters of Frozen are working on a movie musical version of a book about a genderqueer prince.
Married creative collaborators Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, after recently scoring an Oscar nomination for Frozen 2’s “Into the Unknown,” told Playbill that their next project is an adaptation of a graphic novel, The Prince and the Dressmaker.
According to the Amazon description of the 2018 book by Jen Wang, The Prince and the Dressmaker centers on Prince Sebastian, a 16-year-old character hiding a secret life from his parents, who want him to find a bride: "At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia."
"Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances ― one of only two people who know the truth: sometimes this boy wears dresses."
For the adaptation, Anderson-Lopez and Lopez will be collaborating with playwright Amy Herzog, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play 4000 Miles, as well as Marc Platt, a producer known for the Legally Blonde films, Mary Poppins Returns, and La La Land. A release date has yet to be announced.
Frozen, what many consider to be a gay allegory, has garnered many LGBTQ fans for its storyline centered on a character struggling with hiding a secret from the world. Many fans advocated on Twitter for this character, Elsa, to find a girlfriend in the recently released sequel, but the idea was rejected by the filmmakers. Still, "Let It Go," from the original, remains a gay anthem.
The Prince and the Dressmaker joins a growing oeuvre of productions aimed at young people that are LGBTQ-inclusive, including Love, Simon and Pixar's upcoming film Onward, which features Disney's first clearly gay character, voiced by Lena Waithe.
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