FROZEN: IT’S ALREADY AVAILABLE ONLINE

Although Frozen remains among the top ten at the box office, earning $4.4 million last weekend, Disney today (Tuesday) made it available for HD download and streaming for $19.99. In doing so, it is following its usual strategy of making its films available for online sales about a month before they go to retailers on DVD and Blu-ray disc. By that time, those films are usually on their last legs at the theatrical box office. Coincidentally (or maybe not), the studio today (Tuesday) is launching Disney Movies Anywhere via Apple’s iTunes Store, featuring more than 400 films from Disney, Pixar and Marvel. The service appears to be similar to UltraViolet, which allows anyone who purchases a movie on DVD to access it online at any time and anywhere. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Tuesday) from Seoul that Frozen, with $72.4 million in ticket sales, has become the highest-grossing animated film in South Korea and the second-highest-grossing film of any kind, behind only Avatar, in that country. The figure makes South Korea the most successful market for the movie outside the U.S., the Journal said.