Olaf's Frozen Adventure, the Frozen featurette that has been showing prior to screenings of Coco, has been getting a lot of grief prior to the announcement it was being pulled from theaters. Many assumed those two things were related. While it made sense to draw a line between the negative response and the announcement that Olaf would not be seen in theaters starting this Friday, it seems that Olaf's Frozen Adventure was always planned to have a more limited run than Coco and was always going to be removed from theaters early.
While Coco has been winning the box office for the last two weeks, it hasn't been without some degree of frustration from many filmgoers who were not fans of the over 20-minute long Frozen "short" that accompanied the film. The biggest issue seems to have been that the piece was just too long, though others clearly didn't think the film was very good. Even the theater employee who posted on Reddit about the piece being pulled on Reddit indicated that the reason was likely the bad reception that Olaf was receiving. However, Disney has told Entertainment Weekly that Olaf was always meant to have a limited run and that December 8 is simply the end of that run.
While not a great deal was made about the Frozen short having a limited run, it is true. A look back and movie poster's for Olaf's Frozen Adventure does specifically say "For a Limited Time" though no specific date is given for when it will end. While it would appear that Disney always planned for Olaf to end his run early, it's likely Disney was leaving the exact date of the wrap up open, depending on how the short was received. If the piece was being warmly embraced, we'd probably see it continuing past this Friday. Since that's not the case, Disney has decided to end it now.
It will be interesting to see how Frozen ending its run will impact the box office of Coco, the film hasn't had any issues winning the box office over the last couple of weeks, even with Olaf opening the show. This coming weekend will be the last one before Star Wars: The Last Jedi completely destroys every other film in ticket sales, so it's Coco's last chance to put up big numbers. It's unlikely that anybody has been avoiding seeing Coco due to Frozen, though it's possible that some might be interested in seeing it a second time if they don't have to sit through Olaf again. That wouldn't be too surprising since Coco is being very warmly received by audiences. It's a fantastic movie that deserves to be seen. Anybody who has been trying to avoid talking snowmen now has no excuse.
