????11月27日，沃爾特?迪斯尼公司(Walt Disney)首席執行官兼董事長鮑勃?伊格爾出現在電影《冰雪奇緣》(Frozen )首映禮的時候，他已經確信，這部以兩姐妹為主線的動畫音樂劇很特別，它是一部重回迪斯尼賴以成名的魔法世界的動畫巨制。等到攝制人員名單一一出現在銀幕時，他早已哽咽得不能自已。“幸虧我帶著3D眼鏡，”他說。“這是我出任沃爾特?迪斯尼公司CEO以來最自豪的時刻。”

????《冰雪奇緣》正在融化伊格爾的內心，不僅僅是因為它正在生成冷冰冰、硬邦邦的鈔票——迄今為止，甚至在進入中國和日本市場之前，這部電影已經斬獲了6.69億美元的票房——還因為，這部電影是迪斯尼動畫工作室 (Disney Animation Studios)在多年令人失望的表現之后接連推出的第三部成功之作。它似乎表明，這家動畫片巨頭終于重新回到了巔峰。“我意識到，‘天哪，迪斯尼動畫正處于理應屬于它的位置上，’”他說。“這種興奮之情是發自內心的。讓我覺得由衷高興的倒不是營收增長，因為營收是按季度計算的，而是一件更宏大、更長久的事物。”

????《冰雪奇緣》講述了兩位疏遠的公主兩姐妹歷經艱辛團聚在一起，最終為她們的家園解除冰封的故事。這部電影正在創造一系列重要的數字：它是有史以來首映周票房最高的動畫電影，整體票房預計將很快超過《獅子王》(The Lion King)；它獲得了兩項金球獎提名，或許也將獲得奧斯卡評審委員會的肯定；它是亞馬遜網站(Amazon)和 iTunes商店銷量最高的電影專輯。（顯然，目前正在美國各地肆虐的“極地渦旋”也起到了推波助瀾的作用；當人們本身就生活在冰天雪地的時候，他們似乎就不介意觀看一部講述冰雪世界的電影。）

????此外，《冰雪奇緣》還具備迪斯尼公司所稱的“特許經營”潛力。它意味著，這部電影的人物和主題將穿越這家公司的各個部門，最終轉化為數不勝數的產品，從玩具到主題公園游樂設施，再到互動角色，不一而足。這是一筆龐大的買賣，因為迪斯尼公司目前只有為數不多的特許經營品牌。“這部影片帶來的收益不只是票房，”詹尼資本市場公司(Janney Capital Markets)資深媒體和娛樂分析師托尼?懷伯說。“他們肯定會在整個娛樂產品鏈打造這些品牌，這是迪斯尼公司歷來遵循的經營之道。”

????1984年和1994年之間，也就是邁克爾?艾斯納和杰弗里?卡森伯格執掌迪士尼動畫的鼎盛時期，這家公司推出了一部又一部令人嘆為觀止的音樂劇。其中，最耳熟能詳的當然是《小美人魚》( The Little Mermaid)、《獅子王》(The Lion King)和《美女與野獸》(Beauty and the Beast)。隨后，精靈之塵終于枯竭。多年來，這家工作室的作品總是無精打采，差強人意。隨著夢工廠(Dreamworks)和皮克斯( Pixar)等公司強勢崛起，后來居上，迪斯尼動畫的士氣愈發消沉，人才紛紛出走。伊格爾說：“我們經歷了一段漫長的困難時期，出于各種原因，我們當時無法制作出能夠提升迪士尼品牌形象的電影。”這正是迪斯尼動畫工作室在2006年斥資70多億美元收購皮克斯公司（這也是伊格爾出任CEO后的首個大動作）的主要原因。

????于是，從7年前開始，皮克斯公司的兩位聯合創始人約翰?拉塞特（現兼任迪士尼動畫和皮克斯的首席創意官）和埃德?卡特莫爾（現任這兩家工作室的董事長）著手分配他們在迪士尼動畫和皮克斯的工作時間，每周往返于舊金山灣區和阿納海姆市之間，以期重新激發潛伏在迪斯尼動畫身上的那股魔力。他們不是嘗試著將皮克斯公司蒸蒸日上的文化移入陷于困境的迪斯尼動畫，而是確定了另一個目標：重振起初讓迪斯尼動畫如此獨特的事物——在技術上大膽突破，充滿神奇的童話故事。然而，盡管兩家公司時常互播對方的電影，以獲得反饋意見，但它們的員工其實并沒有一起制作電影，即便是在危機時期也不例外。拉塞特和卡特莫爾認為，讓兩家公司的特性保持分立至關重要。

????When Walt Disney CEO and Chairman Bob Iger showed up at the premiere of film Frozen on Nov. 27, he was already sure that the animated musical about two sisters was something special, a return to the magical essence that made Disney, well, Disney. By the time he got to the credits, he had choked up. "I was glad I was wearing [3-D] glasses," he says. "It was my proudest moment as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company."

????Frozen is melting Iger's heart not just because of the cold, hard, cash it's generating -- it has grossed $669 million so far, and it hasn't even opened in China or Japan -- but also because the success of the film, the third in a row for the studio after years of disappointment, appears to show that Disney Animation Studios is finally, finally back in the groove. "I realized, 'My goodness, Disney Animation is where it rightfully belongs,'" he says. "The exhilaration was profound. It's not about the bottom line. The bottom line is for the quarter. This is for something bigger and longer."

????The tale of two estranged sister princesses who must come together to de-ice their homeland,Frozen is racking up the big numbers. It was the No. 1 all-time Disney animation debut, and it is expected to soon pass The Lion King in overall box office; it's been nominated for two Golden Globes and may get an Oscar nod; it's the No. 1 album on both Amazon and iTunes. (Apparently, the "polar vortex" helped; people didn't seem to mind watching a story about an icy world when they were actually living in one.)

????Frozen also has what Disney (DIS) calls "franchise" potential, which means that its characters and themes will translate across the company to everything from toys to theme park rides to interactive characters. It's a big deal, because there are only a relative handful of franchise brands at Disney. "They're not just making money inside of that film window," says Tony Wible, senior media and entertainment analyst at Janney Capital Markets. "In that Disney fashion, they set it up across the whole spectrum."

????In the Michael Eisner/Jeffrey Katzenberg heyday between 1984 and 1994, Disney Animation rolled out one musical blockbuster after another. There was The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and many others. And then the pixie dust dried up. For years, the offerings were listless and underperformed. Morale dropped and talent departed as companies like Dreamworks and Pixar took the lead in animation. Says Iger: "We went through a long period where, for a variety of reasons, we weren't making the films that drove the perception of the company and the brand." That was a major reason why Iger's first big move as CEO was to spend over $7 billion to buy Pixar in 2006.

????And so, starting seven years ago, two of Pixar's co-founders, John Lasseter (now chief creative officer of both Disney Animation and Pixar) and Ed Catmull (now president of both studios), began to split their time between Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, commuting between the Bay Area and Anaheim every week in hopes of rekindling that Disney magic. Rather than trying to graft Pixar's thriving culture onto Disney's struggling one, they determined that the goal was to resurrect what had made Disney so special in the first place -- the technically audacious, yet magical, fairy tale. But while they screened films for each other to get feedback, Pixar employees and Disney employees didn't actually work together on films, even during crunch times. Lasseter and Catmull believed it was critical to keep the two identities separate.