‘Frozen’ and ‘Lion King’ are 2 of Disney’s biggest success stories. These women made it so

LOS ANGELES — Jennifer Lee and Irene Mecchi are part of an extremely rarefied club. They were integral to the success of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ three top-grossing films of all time: “Frozen,” “Frozen II” and “The Lion King,” which have cumulatively earned more than $3.8 billion globally.

Lee wrote and co-directed the first two, and Mecchi co-wrote the latter. Both women wrote the librettos for the stage adaptations of their respective films too. All of which is remarkable not just for the stunning success of the franchises they helped cultivate, but also because they are women in industries (both theater and film) that have notorious histories of being unwelcoming to women. The two remain committed to giving other women in the field advice and helping them get a foot in the door.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Lee and Mecchi sat together in the Disney lot’s Animation building in Burbank to celebrate a unique moment: the fact that their stage shows are running simultaneously in Southern California — “The Lion King” at the Pantages, through March 26, and “Frozen” at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, which runs through Feb. 19.

The women had met only one other time — when “Frozen” opened on Broadway in 2018 (“A very intimate evening of 1,200 people,” Mecchi quipped). But they laugh and joke — and relate — as if they’ve been friends for life. It’s the kind of bond that only shared experience, and creating world-dominating art, can cultivate.

Mecchi recalls feeling supported when she joined the creative team for “The Lion King” in 1992. Brenda

Chapman was the head of story — the first woman to serve in that role on an animated feature film. (In 1998, Chapman became the first woman to direct an animated feature for a major studio with DreamWorks Animation’s “The Prince of Egypt.”) And Lorna Cook (“The Land Before Time,” “Mulan,” “Beauty and the Beast”) was key story artist.

“We were with a group of men who heard women,” Mecchi says of “The Lion King,” which was directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff. “And I think that was one of the keys to (the film). From the beginning it was very, ‘Yes, and?’ There was never a ‘No, this is a terrible idea.’”

Lee, too, remembers a receptive room of creatives when she was working on “Frozen.” At the time she was new to Disney, having just co-written the screenplay for “Wreck-It Ralph,” and she says she was “desperate for the job.”

Lee says she was hired after she saw an early screening of a draft of “Frozen” and voiced some concerns about character: “I don’t understand — these women are their sisters, but they’re jealous? Why? Why is Anna so persnickety? Why does she demand butter-colored flowers instead of the yellow? They’re not likable. I don’t relate. And I’ve seen this before,” Lee recalls saying at a meeting afterward.

That was all it took for co-director Chris Buck and songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez to want Lee on board. From there, says Lee, the team dove into the ways women can feel misunderstood, the power that love and fear hold, and how fear can often take over, as well as “how much we mess up in love all the time.”

When “Frozen” was released in 2013, Lee became the first female director of a Disney Animation Studios film, and the first female director of a feature film that crossed the $1-billion mark at the box office. Today she is Disney Animation Studios’ chief creative officer. To say her rise through the ranks at the storied studio was supersonic would be an understatement.

Lee still remembers the day a decade ago when “Frozen” had just been released and she attended a showing with a friend in New York City around Christmastime. There was a promotional Olaf statue in the lobby that was dressed in a hula skirt, and it was wrecked.

“Someone stole his ukulele, and his skirt was gone, and he had no arms. He was just standing there in the corner broken,” Lee laughs, adding that she felt it didn’t necessarily bode well for the success of the film. But when she sat in the audience, she realized everyone was not only singing along, but they were also actually reciting the lines.