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It's a pretty well known story at this point that in the original plan for Disney's Frozen, Elsa was going to be a more traditional villain, before the creation of the song "Let it Go" changed a lot about the story. It turns out that Frozen II also went through some significant, if not quite as drastic, changes in the story department.
Nearly everybody who appears in Frozen II gets their moment to shine on the soundtrack. Even Jonathan Groff, who got shutout of singing in the first movie gets an, apparently important, song in the sequel. However, one of the new cast members, Sterling K. Brown, doesn't get a chance to show off his voice in the film. He still had to prove that he could sing, however, when getting the part, as Brown reveals initially his character did have a song in the movie that was cut.
I do not sing in the film, but I had to sing for the audition because there was a song that I was going to sing that ultimately they felt didn't fit in with the story.
It's certainly not uncommon, especially in animated movies, for stories to go through significant changes from their original conception. In one draft of Toy Story, Woody was a ventriloquist dummy and more of an antagonist than a friend to Buzz Lightyear. The Good Dinosaur was started over almost completely when it was felt the original idea wasn't working (you can check out both films on Disney+ with a 7-day free trial by clicking here) . Because animated movies can be changed in the middle of production, and they take so much longer to make anyway, changes happen if it's felt the movie can be improved.
Sterling K. Brown tells Yahoo that originally, when Anna, Elsa, and company arrive in the enchanted forest, his character, Lieutenant Destin Mattias, was the only one they found, and that apparently Mattias had gone perhaps a little bonkers due to the isolation of all those years...
Originally, he was in the forest by himself, isolated, and only had himself to talk to. So I would have scenes where I talk to myself and the whole thing, and then someone like Anna would chime in and I'd be like, 'I didn't say that. Did I say that?' It was interesting interplay, because I'd never heard another voice. So that went away and the song had to be re-conceived.
Sterling K. Brown's character is an Arendelle soldier who was apparently trapped in the enchanted forest when some unknown magical force locked it away. While the plan, originally, was to leave Mattias as the only one on the other side, we know from the trailers that this idea changed in a big way. There are a lot more people living in the forest now than was originally planned.
It seems that in the original concept of Frozen II, none of these villager characters were in the forest at all. That seems to be a pretty significant change to the story, although, certainly, we don't know exactly how they will play into the plot.
It's unfortunate that this change in the film's direction resulted in the loss of a song for Sterling K. Brown. With the soundtrack coming out tomorrow, we might get a hint at what the song was, and get more details about what this version of the story could have been.
