Olaf was iced so brutally in the original Frozen 2 cut that Disney CEO Bob Iger was scared of unlocking a fear of death in children everywhere

I gotta be honest with you: I barely remember anything that transpired in Frozen 2 even though I really enjoyed the original. I do remember Olaf temporarily dying and the scene being very sad though. Well, it turns out it could've been much worse, especially for the youngest members of the audience.

Via Entertainment Weekly, we've learned about a major creative rework that took place after some test screenings ended with kids "very confused and very, very sad." This new bit of information arrived through Josh Gad's memoir and collection of essays In Gad We Trust.

According to the actor, Olaf's original death scene was more hard-hitting: "Jenn and I started recording the dialogue and I couldn't get through it without sobbing. Those first recordings were brutal, and I remember feeling that we were doing something that was going to pack a serious punch," he recalled. That's usually a good feeling to have while working on fiction that millions of people are gonna experience, but it's also good to be mindful of the limits of Disney movies aimed at kids.

In Avengers: Infinity War, a movie that grossed over $2 billion worldwide, the final 5 minutes or so are spent killing off half the main cast (as well as half the universe), including a confused and genuinely scared Peter Parker who'd just joined the party. Much like Parker's, Olaf's death scene in Frozen 2 has him slowly fading away. However, he's at peace... in the cut that everyone saw. It wasn't always like that.

"In the first version, Olaf himself was scared and confused by what was happening... We had made our intended audience (children) scared for Olaf, rather than emotional." Disney CEO Bob Iger, who at the time hadn't left yet (only to return after Bob Chapek fumbled the bag), hit the nail on the head according to Gad and writer and co-director Jennifer Lee: "Olaf is a child. You can't just willy-nilly kill a scared child, because the children watching will see themselves in him." Iger might be more of a ruthless, effective executive, but considering he made Disney the biggest it's ever been during the 2010s, he knows a thing or two about what audiences want and reject.

In the end, the scene went through rewrites and was re-recorded, though it sounds like Disney's top brass asked for Olaf not to be killed. According to Gad, Lee "fought to do an altered version in which Olaf isn't scared, but instead is at peace and comforts Anna before he leaves. It was one of the lightbulb moments and creatively brilliant pivots that Jenn and the Frozen team are known for at this point." The movie went on to make nearly $1.5 billion worldwide, topping the original's already massive haul.

Frozen 3 is now on the way, but still a ways off: It will arrive on November 24, 2027.