Disney's 'Princess and the Frog' Charms its Way to Top of the Box Office

Variety is reporting that the latest Disney animated release "The Princess and the Frog" claimed the the top of the box office chart on Friday, making $7 million off 3,434 theaters in its first Friday of wide release. Disney's Princess and the Frog, featuring for the first time four major Broadway voices - Anika Noni Rose, Jen Cody, Micheal Leon Wooley, and Peter Batlett - had its nationwide opening Friday, December 11.

The is set in New Orleans and feature the Walt Disney Studio's first black princess.

Oprah Winfrey joins the cast as Eudora, the mother to Princess Tiana voiced by stage and screen star Anika Noni Rose (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Caroline of Change, Footloose).

The film also stars such stage (and movie) greats as John Goodman, Jenifer Lewis, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley (American Buffalo, Little Shop of Horrors), and Peter Bartlett (Drowsy Chaperone, Beauty and the Beast).

Currently appearing in Shrek The Musical, Broadway favorite Jen Cody is also in the film as well, voicing Charlotte LaBouff.

The movie is written and directed by John Musker and Ron Clements and features the music of Randy Newman, who wrote 6 new songs for the film.

A musical set in the legendary birthplace of jazz -- New Orleans -- "The Princess and the Frog" will introduce the newest Disney princess, Tiana, a young African-American girl living amid the charming elegance and grandeur of the fabled French Quarter. From the heart of Louisiana's mystical bayous and the banks of the mighty Mississippi comes an unforgettable tale of love, enchantment and discovery with a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm at every turn.

Princess Tiana joins eight other Disney princess characters, who have generated $3 billion in global retail sales since 1999. Disney Princesses is the fastest-growing brand for the company's Consumer Products division reported .

Disney introduced its first non-white animated heroine in 1992's "Aladdin": a Middle Eastern character named Jasmine. Three years later an American Indian princess appeared in "Pocahontas."

The creation of the Chinese heroine from "Mulan" came in 1998. Other Disney princesses are the main characters from "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Little Mermaid."

For more information visit, www.disney.go.com.

 

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