Cult Member (Level 7 ice master) Tom Wazeem here. This is a fantastic article from Forbes on Frozen that talks about why it is a success and puts it in good perspective. Especially its standing as a "female centric" film.
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Frozens success is more than just another preordained blockbuster in fact becoming a blockbuster. Its a film that opened well and then kept on chugging because audiences loved it, and because the market craved it. Thats why it matters."
Media & Entertainment 4/26/2014 @ 11:48AM 6,575 views
Box Office: Disney's 'Frozen' Tops $400M
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/04/26/box-office-disneys-frozen-tops-400m/
On its 155th day of domestic release,
Walt Disneys animated smash
Frozen has crossed $400 million at the
domestic box office. Coming off a $67 million Fri-Sun debut over its $93m Thanksgiving weekend opening, the film has earned a mammoth 5.9x its opening weekend number. And while rank doesnt matter per-se, its 17-week hold in the top ten brings to mind the kind of old-school hits like
Ghostbusters and
Back to the Future that used to just play for months and months on end.
Heck,
Frozen has been out on
VOD since February 25th and available on DVD since March 18th.
Frozen has actually earned $15.7m since its VOD release and $3.3m since it dropped on DVD/Blu-Ray and sold 3.8 million copies in a single day. This wasnt just a predetermined smash hit.
Frozen touched a nerve around the world in a way few films do today.
The film crossed $1 billion about a month ago and continues to move higher up the all-time grossers list. With $1.13b worldwide, it is currently sitting at 6th, sandwiched between
Iron Man 3 ($1.2b) and
Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($1.12b).It was already the biggest-grossing non-sequel not directed by
James Cameron. In America, the picture is a little more complicated. While the worldwide grossers list is tilted towards recent 3D-infused sequels, the top grossers list in America is still dominated by somewhat original properties. As such,
Frozen is the 19th film to cross $400m in 16 years and the ninth non-sequel to do so, behind
Jurassic Park (aided by last years 3D-reissue),
Spider-Man,
The Hunger Games,
The Lion King (aided by 2011′s 3D-reissue),
E.T. (aided by multiple reissues),
Star Wars (more reissues that you can count),
Titanic, and
Avatar.
In terms of first-release only,
Frozen is actually the fifteenth-biggest grosser in America and the fifth-biggest non-sequel. If you want to get specific,
Frozen is the sixth-highest-grossing film in America not based on a known property that made it into a presold blockbuster, behind
The Lion King Star Wars,
E.T., and the
James Cameron duo. As someone who started keeping track of box office back when
Batmans $250m domestic gross was enough for a spot on the top-five, its a little refreshing to kind an example of where $400 million in domestic grosses is still both surprising and a result of old-school zeitgeist as opposed to massive openings so large as to get them over the hump with just the slightest of legs.
The first film to cross $400 million domestic was actually
Star Wars, which used the $136 million earned by its special edition reissue in 1997 to push it over the hump.
Titanic followed that December to cross not just $400m but also $500m and $600m, a feat not bested until
The Dark Knight ($533m) in 2008 and
The Avengers ($623m) in 2012. Well, aside from
Avatar in 2009, which earned $760m. Like the $1 billion worldwide grosser, the $400m benchmark was once an unfathomable milestone that went from plausible to almost expected for the very biggest films in just under a decade.
But that doesnt make the milestone any less impressive for
Frozen, especially considering the demographics. As you look at that top-grossers list, you dont find very many female-centric pictures. Youve got the Leonardio DiCaprio/Kate Winslet-starring
Titanic, the action-centric
The Hunger Games, and male-skewing films that played well to both genders (pretty much anything that goes that high needs gender-neutral appeal).
Frozen is the only unapologetic chick flick on the $400m list that had no male heartthrob, mass destruction, or hard action to sell. It is a film not just about a lone woman in a (stereotypically) male-centric genre (war, action, etc.), but about women and with little to entice the male gender beyond its quality.
So yes,
Frozen should be celebrated as a box office milestone, both in terms of its final gross, in terms of how it made its money (slowly, fueled by word of mouth), and how it bucked conventional wisdom (its an unapologetically female-centric fairy tale). Its proven yet again that a female-centric film can reach just as high on the blockbuster scale as a conventionally male-centric one. It has helped make the gender divide in popular entertainment a part of the common conversation, to the point where
LEGO Movie 2 director Chris McKay admitted to
The Daily Mail, apparently without prompting, that his sequel would correct the gender imbalance found in the first smash hit.
Frozens success is more than just another preordained blockbuster in fact becoming a blockbuster. Its a film that opened well and then kept on chugging because audiences loved it, and because the market craved it. Thats why it matters.
Thanks so much for the update! I can always make time to talk about Frozen! 
