Early versions Following the widespread critical and commercial success of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937,
Walt Disney sought out other stories to adapt into feature films. Among the titles considered was
Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's version of the "
Beauty and the Beast" fairy tale. Walt attempted to adapt the story into an animated film during both the 1930s and 1950s, but efforts were shelved once the plot proved too challenging, Decades later, as
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was nearing completion in 1987, the Disney studio resurrected
Beauty and the Beast as a project for the satellite animation studio they established in London, England to work on
Roger Rabbit.
Richard Williams, who had directed the animated portions of
Roger Rabbit, was approached to direct
Beauty and the Beast but declined in favor of prioritizing his long-gestating project,
The Thief and the Cobbler. He suggested his colleague, English animation director Richard Purdum, in his place, and work began under producer
Don Hahn on a non-musical version of
Beauty and the Beast set in 19th-century France. At the behest of Disney CEO
Michael Eisner,
Beauty and the Beast became the first Disney animated film to use a screenwriter in an official capacity. This was an unusual move for an animated film, which at this time were traditionally developed on
storyboards rather than in a scripted form. After
Linda Woolverton had written a
spec script for a
Winnie the Pooh project that was never developed, Katzenberg asked her to work on
Beauty and the Beast, with her earliest drafts being darker and non-musical.
Beauty and the Beast was Disney's first animated film to use a completed script prior to storyboarding and animation. Woolverton said there was a significant
learning curve on
Beauty and the Beast because the new process was not explained to herself nor the story department who, prior to
Beauty and the Beast, would have done the screenwriting themselves.
Roger Allers, the film's story supervisor, acknowledged some tension between Linda Woolverton and the story team but explained that Woolverton was unaccustomed to working in a collaborative environment where no material is considered sacred or untouchable as the story evolves from script to visual medium.
Script rewrite and musicalization ordered that the film be scrapped and started over from scratch. Upon seeing the initial storyboard reels in 1989, Walt Disney Studios chairman
Jeffrey Katzenberg was dissatisfied with Purdum's idea and ordered that the film be scrapped and started over from scratch. A few months after starting anew, Purdum resigned as director. The studio had approached
John Musker and
Ron Clements to direct the film, but they turned down the offer, saying they were "tired" after just having finished directing Disney's recent success
The Little Mermaid. Katzenberg then hired first-time feature directors
Kirk Wise and
Gary Trousdale. Wise and Trousdale had previously directed the animated sections of
Cranium Command, a short film for a Disney
EPCOT theme park attraction. In addition, wanting another musical film, Katzenberg asked songwriters
Howard Ashman and
Alan Menken, who had written the song score for
The Little Mermaid, to turn
Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway-style musical film in the same vein as
Mermaid. Since the original story had only two major characters, the filmmakers enhanced them, added new characters in the form of enchanted household items who "add warmth and comedy to a gloomy story" and guide the audience through the film, and added a "real villain" in the form of Gaston. The film also incorporates ideas from the
1946 French film directed by
Jean Cocteau. These ideas were somewhat similar to elements of the 1946 French film version of
Beauty and the Beast, which introduced the character of Avenant, an oafish suitor somewhat similar to Gaston, as well as inanimate objects coming to life in the Beast's castle. The animated objects were, however, given distinct personalities in the Disney version. By early 1990, Katzenberg had approved the revised script, and storyboarding began again. They eventually decided upon Broadway actress and singer
Paige O'Hara in favor of having a heroine who sounded "more like a woman than a girl". According to co-director Kirk Wise, O'Hara was given the role because she "had a unique quality, a tone she would hit that made her special", reminiscent to that of American actress and singer
Judy Garland. O'Hara, who, after reading about the film in
The New York Times, competed for the role against 500 hopefuls, believes the fact that lyricist Howard Ashman admired her
cast recording of the musical
Show Boat proved integral in her being cast. O'Hara modeled her interpretation of Belle after the spirited performance of
Katharine Hepburn in
Little Women (1933).
Laurence Fishburne,
Val Kilmer and
Mandy Patinkin were originally considered to voice the Beast, the role was eventually given to actor
Robby Benson.
John Cleese was originally intended to voice Cogsworth, but later turned it down to voice Cat. R. Waul in the
Universal Pictures animated film
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, and the role was eventually given to
David Ogden Stiers. This technique was put to significant use during the "Beauty and the Beast" waltz sequence, in which Belle and Beast dance through a computer-generated ballroom as the camera
dollies around them in simulated 3D space. The success of the ballroom sequence helped convince studio executives to further invest in computer animation. Pixar's
RenderMan, among other software, was used to
render the ballroom. The final dance between Belle and the Prince was reused from the final dance sequence between
Princess Aurora and
Prince Phillip from the 1959 film
Sleeping Beauty. According to Trousdale, this was done because production of the film was nearing the deadline, and this was the easiest way to do that sequence.
Music Ashman and Menken wrote the
Beauty song score during the pre-production process in Fishkill, the opening
operetta-styled "
Belle" being their first composition for the film. Other songs included "
Be Our Guest", sung to Belle by the objects when she becomes the first visitor to eat at the castle in a decade and not to be locked in the dungeon, "
Gaston", a solo for the swaggering villain and his bumbling sidekick, "Human Again", a song describing Belle and Beast's growing love from the objects' perspective, the love ballad "
Beauty and the Beast (Tale as Old as Time)" and the climactic "
The Mob Song". As story and song development came to a close, full production began in Burbank while voice and song recording began in New York City. The film's title song went through a noted bit of uncertainty during production. Originally conceived as a rock-oriented song, it was changed to the version seen in the film. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken asked Angela Lansbury to perform the song, but she did not think her voice was suited for the melody. When she voiced her doubts, Menken and Ashman asked her for at least one take and told her to perform the song as she saw fit. Lansbury reportedly reduced everyone in the studio to tears with her rendition, nailing the song in the one take asked of her. This version went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. "Human Again" was dropped from the film before animation began, as its lyrics caused story problems about the timeline over which the story takes place. He never saw the finished film, though he did get to see it in its unfinished format. Ashman's work on
Aladdin was completed by another lyricist,
Tim Rice. Before Ashman's death, members of the film's production team visited him after the film's well-received first screening, with Don Hahn commenting that "the film would be a great success. Who'd have thought it?" Ashman replied, "I would". Outside of North America, the song peaked within the top ten in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, while peaking within the top twenty in Australia, Netherlands, and Ireland. The song sold over a million copies worldwide. This version of the song was also nominated for
Record of the Year,
Song of the Year, and
Best Pop Duo/Group Vocal Performance at the
35th Annual Grammy Awards, winning the latter. ==Release==