Frozen (2013 film) billion, and Lasseter was promoted to chief creative officer of both Pixar and Disney Animation. The next attempt started in 2008, when Lasseter was able to convince Chris Buck (who co-directed the 1999 film "Tarzan" for the studio) to return to Walt Disney Animation Studios from Sony Pictures Animation (where he had recently co-directed the Oscar-nominated 2007 film "Surf's Up"); that September, Buck pitched several ideas to Lasseter, one of which was "The Snow Queen". Buck later revealed that his initial inspiration for "The Snow Queen" was not the Andersen fairy tale itself, but that he wanted "to do something
Frozen (2013 film) among animated films in Sweden. In total earnings, the film's top market after North America is Japan ($247.6 million), followed by South Korea ($76.6 million) and the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta ($65.7 million). In South Korea, "Frozen" is the second-largest foreign film both in terms of attendance and gross, the largest Disney release and the first animated film to earn more than ten million admissions. In Japan, it is the third-highest-grossing film of all time, the second-highest-grossing imported film (behind "Titanic") and the highest-grossing Disney film. It topped the country's box office for sixteen consecutive weekends until being surpassed