Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)
Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated musical romantic fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is based on the 1756 fairy tale of the same name by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (who was only credited in the French dub),[6] while also containing ideas from the 1946 French film also of the same name directed by Jean Cocteau.[7] The film was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (in their feature directorial debuts) and produced by Don Hahn, from a screenplay by Linda Woolverton.
Beauty and the Beast
- Brenda Chapman
- Chris Sanders
- Burny Mattinson
- Kevin Harkey
- Brian Pimental
- Bruce Woodside
- Joe Ranft
- Tom Ellery
- Kelly Asbury
- Robert Lence
- September 29, 1991 (NYFF)
- November 22, 1991 (United States)
84 minutes[4]
United States
English
$25 million[5]
$424 million[5]
Beauty and the Beast focuses on the relationship between the Beast, a prince who is magically transformed into a monster and his servants into household objects as punishment for his arrogance and cruelty, and Belle, a young woman whom he imprisons in his castle in exchange for her father's freedom. To break the curse, the Beast must learn to love Belle and earn her love in return before the last petal from an enchanted rose falls, or else he will remain a monster forever. The film stars Paige O'Hara and Robby Benson as the voices of Belle and the Beast, respectively, as well as the ensemble voices of Richard White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers, Jesse Corti, Rex Everhart, and Angela Lansbury.[8]
Walt Disney first attempted to adapt Beauty and the Beast into an animated film during the 1930s and 1950s, but was unsuccessful. Following the success of The Little Mermaid (1989), Walt Disney Pictures decided to adapt the fairy tale, which Richard Purdum originally conceived as a non-musical period drama. After seeing a test reel, Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg scrapped Purdum's idea and ordered that the film be a musical similar to The Little Mermaid instead.[8] Composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, both of whom previously worked on The Little Mermaid, returned to write this film's songs. Ashman, who additionally served as the film's executive producer, died of AIDS-related complications six months before the film's release, and the film is thus dedicated to his memory.
Beauty and the Beast premiered as an unfinished film at the New York Film Festival on September 29, 1991, followed by its theatrical release as a completed film at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 13. The film grossed $331 million at the box office worldwide on a $25 million budget and received widespread acclaim for its romantic narrative, animation (particularly the ballroom scene), characters, and musical numbers. Beauty and the Beast won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, the first animated film to ever win that category. It also became the first animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards (ultimately losing to The Silence of the Lambs), where it won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for its title song and received additional nominations for Best Original Song and Best Sound. In April 1994, Beauty and the Beast became Disney's first animated film to be adapted into a Broadway musical, which ran until 2007.
An IMAX version of the film was released in 2002 and included the new song "Human Again", originally an eight-minute storyboarded musical sequence ultimately replaced with "Something There", but later revised in the 1994 musical as a five-minute piece. That same year, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[9][10] After the success of the 3D re-release of The Lion King, the film was reissued in 3D in 2012.[11] In 2014, Time magazine ranked Beauty and the Beast as the greatest film of the Disney Renaissance[12] and one of the greatest animated films of all time.
Other derived works and material inspired by the film, include a 2017 live-action remake of the film directed by Bill Condon, which was released on March 17, 2017, and a 2022 musical presentation of the film on ABC as part of The Wonderful World of Disney.
Plot[edit]
An enchantress disguised as a beggar woman visits the castle of a cruel and selfish prince, offering him an enchanted rose in exchange for shelter from a storm. When he refuses, she reveals her identity and transforms the prince into a beast and his servants into household objects. The spell will only be broken if the prince learns to love another and be loved in return before the last petal falls, or he will remain a beast forever.
Several years later, in a nearby village, Belle, the book-loving daughter of an eccentric inventor named Maurice, dreams of adventure. She frequently avoids Gaston, a narcissistic hunter who wants to marry her because of her beauty. En route to a fair to showcase his latest invention, an automatic wood chopper, Maurice gets lost in the forest and seeks refuge in the Beast's castle. There, the Beast imprisons Maurice for trespassing. When Maurice's horse returns alone, Belle ventures out searching for her father, finding him locked in the castle dungeon. Belle agrees to take Maurice's place as the Beast's prisoner in exchange for her father's freedom.
Belle befriends the castle's servants: Lumière the candelabra, Cogsworth the clock, Mrs. Potts the teapot, and her son Chip, the teacup. When she wanders into the forbidden west wing and finds the rose, the Beast catches her and angrily forces her to flee the castle. In the forest, she is ambushed by a pack of wolves, but the Beast rescues her, injuring himself in the process. As Belle nurses his injuries, a rapport develops between them and as time passes, they begin falling in love.
Meanwhile, Maurice returns to the village and fails to convince the townsfolk of Belle's predicament. Hearing Maurice's statements about the Beast, Gaston bribes Monsieur D'Arque, the warden of the town's insane asylum, to have Maurice declared insane and locked up, which Gaston will use to blackmail Belle into marrying him in exchange for Maurice's release. Before they can act, however, Maurice leaves for the castle to attempt a rescue alone.
After sharing a romantic dance with the Beast, Belle uses the Beast's magic mirror to check on her father and sees him collapsing in the woods. The Beast releases her to save Maurice, giving her the mirror as a memento. After Belle takes her father to the village, a band of villagers led by Gaston arrives to detain Maurice. Belle uses the mirror to show the Beast to the townsfolk, proving her father's sanity. Realizing that Belle loves the Beast, a jealous and outraged Gaston locks Belle and her father in the cellar, and rallies the villagers to help him slay the Beast. Chip, who arrived at their house as a stowaway, activates Maurice's wood-chopping machine, freeing Maurice and Belle from the cellar.
When the villagers arrive at the castle, the Beast's servants fend them off. Meanwhile, Gaston attacks the Beast, who is too depressed from Belle's departure to fight back, but regains his spirit upon seeing Belle return. He defeats Gaston, but spares his life before reuniting with Belle. However, Gaston fatally stabs the Beast before losing his footing and falling to his death.[a] The Beast dies in Belle's arms before the last petal falls. Belle tearfully professes her love to the Beast, and the spell is undone, reviving the Beast and restoring his human form along with his servants and castle. The Prince and Belle host a ball for the kingdom, where they dance happily.
Production[edit]
Early versions[edit]
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, with Beauty and the Beast being among the stories he considered.[15][33] Attempts to develop the Beauty and the Beast story into a film were made in the 1930s and 1950s, but were ultimately given up because it "proved to be a challenge" for the story team.[15] Peter M. Nichols states Disney may later have been discouraged by Jean Cocteau having already done his 1946 version.[34]
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 it had set up in London, England to work on Roger Rabbit. Richard Williams, who had directed the animated portions of Roger Rabbit, was approached to direct but declined in favor of continuing work on his long-gestating project The Thief and the Cobbler. In his place, Williams recommended his colleague, English animation director Richard Purdum, and work began under producer Don Hahn on a non-musical version of Beauty and the Beast set in 19th-century France.[35] At the behest of Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Beauty and the Beast became the first Disney animated film to use a screenwriter. This was an unusual move for an animated film, which is traditionally developed on storyboards rather than in a scripted form. Linda Woolverton wrote the original draft of the story before storyboarding began, and worked with the story team to retool and develop the film.[36]
Release[edit]
Work-in-progress and original theatrical run[edit]
In a first-time accomplishment for The Walt Disney Company, an unfinished version of Beauty and the Beast was shown at the New York Film Festival on September 29, 1991.[57] The film was deemed a "work in progress" because roughly only 70% of the animation had been completed; storyboards and pencil tests were used in replacement of the remaining 30%.[58] Additionally, certain segments of the film that had already been finished were reverted to previous stages of completion. At the end of the screening, Beauty and the Beast received a ten-minute-long standing ovation from the film festival audience.[35][59] The completed film was also screened out of competition at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.[60] The finished film premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on November 13, 1991, beginning a limited release before expanding wide on November 22,[59] along with An American Tail: Fievel Goes West.
Reissues[edit]
The film was restored and remastered for its New Year's Day, 2002 re-release in IMAX theatres in a special-edition edit, including a new musical sequence. For this version of the film, much of the animation was cleaned up, a new sequence set to the deleted song "Human Again" was inserted into the film's second act, and a new digital master from the original CAPS production files was used to make the high-resolution IMAX film negative.[61]
A sing-along edition, hosted by Jordin Sparks, was released in select theaters on September 29 and October 2, 2010. Prior to the showing, Sparks showed an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the newly restored film and the making of her new Beauty and the Beast music video. There was also commentary from producer Hahn, interviews with the cast and an inside look at how the animation was created.[62][63]
A Disney Digital 3D version, the second of a traditionally animated film, was originally scheduled to be released in US theatres on February 12, 2010, but the project was postponed, first to 2011 and then to 2012.[64] On August 25, 2011, Disney announced that the 3D version would make its American debut at Hollywood's El Capitan Theatre from September 2–15, 2011.[65] Disney spent less than $10 million on the 3D conversion.[66] After the successful 3D re-release of The Lion King, Disney announced a wide 3D re-release of Beauty and the Beast in North America beginning January 13, 2012.[67]
To celebrate Disney's 100th anniversary, Beauty and the Beast was re-released in selected Cinemark theaters from August 18 to 31, 2023, across the United Kingdom from September 22 to 28, and in Helios theaters across Poland on October 7.[68][69][70]
Home media[edit]
On October 30, 1992, in the United States and Canada, Walt Disney Home Video (currently known as Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment) released the film to VHS and LaserDisc as part of the Walt Disney Classics series, and later put it on moratorium on April 30, 1993, it was not included in the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection line.[71] The "work-in-progress" version screened at the New York Film Festival was also released on VHS and LaserDisc at this time;[13] however, said version was the only one available on the latter format until the fall of 1993, when the completed theatrical version was released. This measure was to diminish the threat of video pirates making copies derived from the LaserDisc (which are not copy-protected) and selling them in international markets, where the film was yet to be available for home release.[72][73] By October 1993, the VHS sold a record 20-22 million units.[74] In 1993, the film was also released on home video in different countries, including the United Kingdom on September 20 of that year, and sold a record 8.5 million units.[75]
Beauty and the Beast: Special Edition, as the enhanced version of the film released in IMAX/large-format is called, was released on a THX certified "Platinum Edition" two-disc DVD and VHS on October 8, 2002.[76] The DVD set features three versions of the film: the extended IMAX Special Edition with the "Human Again" sequence added, the original theatrical version, and the New York Film Festival "work-in-progress" version. This release went to "Disney Vault" moratorium status in January 2003, along with its direct-to-video follow-ups Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and Belle's Magical World.[77] The Special Edition DVD was released on November 2, 2002, in the United Kingdom, while the other 50 international territories released on Autumn 2002 as "Special Limited Edition".
The film was released from the vault on October 5, 2010, as the second of Disney's Diamond Editions, in the form of a three-disc Blu-ray Disc and DVD combination pack[78]—the first release of Beauty and the Beast on home video in high-definition format.[79] This edition consists of four versions of the film: the original theatrical version, an extended version, the New York Film Festival storyboard-only version, and a fourth iteration displaying the storyboards via picture-in-picture alongside the original theatrical version.[80] Upon its first week of release, the Blu-ray sold 1.1 million units, topping the Blu-ray sales chart and finishing in third place on the combined Blu-ray and DVD sales chart for the week ending on October 10, 2010.[81][82] It was the second-best-selling Blu-ray of 2010, behind Avatar.[83] A two-disc DVD edition was released on November 23, 2010.[78] A five-disc combo pack, featuring Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray 2D, DVD and a digital copy, was released on October 4, 2011. The 3D combo pack is identical to the original Diamond Edition, except for the added 3D disc and digital copy. The Blu-ray release went into the Disney Vault along with the two sequels on April 30, 2012.[84]
A 25th-anniversary Signature Edition was released on Digital HD September 6, 2016, and was followed by Blu-ray/DVD combo pack on September 20, 2016.[85] Upon its first week of release on home media in the U.S., the film topped the Blu-ray Disc sales chart, and debuted at number 3 in the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales, behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and Captain America: Civil War.[86] The film was released on 4K digital download and Ultra HD Blu-ray on March 10, 2020.[87]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
For its original theatrical run, Beauty and the Beast earned $9.6 million in its opening weekend, ranking in third place behind The Addams Family and Cape Fear.[88] During its initial release in 1991, the film grossed $145.9 million in revenues in North America and $331.9 million worldwide.[5] It ranked as the third-most successful film of 1991 in North America, surpassed only by the summer blockbusters Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.[89] At the time, Beauty and the Beast was the most successful animated Disney film release, and the first animated film to reach $100 million in the United States and Canada in its initial run.[90][91] In its IMAX re-release, it earned $25.5 million in North America and $5.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $31 million.[92]
It also earned $9.8 million from its 3D re-release overseas.[5] During the opening weekend of its North American 3D re-release in 2012, Beauty and the Beast grossed $17.8 million, coming in at the No. 2 spot, behind Contraband, and achieved the highest opening weekend for an animated film in January.[93][94] The film was expected to make $17.5 million over the weekend; however, the results topped its forecast and the expectations of box office analysts.[95][96] The re-release ended its run on May 3, 2012, and earned $47.6 million, which brought the film's total gross in North America to $219 million.[97] It made an estimated $206 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $425 million.[5] It was the highest-grossing film in Italy, surpassing the 39 billion lira grossed by Johnny Stecchino.[98]
Critical response[edit]
Upon its release, Beauty and the Beast received universal acclaim from critics and audiences alike for its animation, screenplay, characters, musical score, musical numbers, and voice acting.[99] Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 93% based on reviews from 121 critics, with an average rating of 8.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Enchanting, sweepingly romantic, and featuring plenty of wonderful musical numbers, Beauty and the Beast is one of Disney's most elegant animated offerings."[100] The film also holds a score of 95/100 on Metacritic, which indicates the reviews as "universal acclaim".[101] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare "A+" grade.[102]
Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised the film with the following statement, "Two years ago, Walt Disney Pictures reinvented the animated feature, not only with an eye toward pleasing children, but also with an older, savvier audience in mind. Disney truly bridged a generation gap with The Little Mermaid ... Now, lightning has definitely struck twice with Beauty and the Beast."[103] Awarding the film a perfect score of four stars, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times compared Beauty and the Beast positively to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio, writing, "Beauty and the Beast reaches back to an older and healthier Hollywood tradition in which the best writers, musicians and filmmakers are gathered for a project on the assumption that a family audience deserves great entertainment, too."[104] In 2001, Ebert again gave the IMAX re-release a full 4 out of 4 stars.[105]
James Berardinelli of ReelViews rated the film similarly while hailing it as "the finest animated movie ever made", writing, "Beauty and the Beast attains a nearly-perfect mix of romance, music, invention, and animation."[106] The use of computer animation, particularly in the ballroom sequence, was singled out in several reviews as one of the film's highlights.[13] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post gave the film a positive review, calling the film "A delightfully satisfying modern fable, a near-masterpiece that draws on the sublime traditions of the past while remaining completely in sync with the sensibility of its time."[107] Janet Maslin of The New York Times gave the film a positive review, saying "It is a surprise, in a time of sequels and retreads, that the new film is so fresh and altogether triumphant in its own right."[108] Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Beauty and the Beast is certainly adequate holiday entertainment for children and their more indulgent parents ... But the film has little of the technical facility, vivid characterization and emotional impact of Disney past."[109]
Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel gave the film four out of five stars, saying "It's not an especially scary movie, but right from the start, you can tell that this Beauty and the Beast has a beauty of a bite."[110] John Hartl of The Seattle Times gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, saying "It's exceptionally difficult to make an audience care for animated characters unless they're mermaids or anthropomorphized animals or insects, yet the Disney animators, with a big assist from the vocal talents of a superb cast, have pulled it off."[111] Gene Siskel, also of the Chicago Tribune, gave the film four out of four stars, saying "Beauty and the Beast is one of the year's most entertaining films for both adults and children."[112] On their Beauty and the Beast edition of Siskel & Ebert, both Siskel and Roger Ebert proclaimed that the film is "a legitimate contender for Oscar consideration as Best Picture of the Year". Michael Sragow of The New Yorker gave the film a positive review, saying "It's got storytelling vigor and clarity, bright, eclectic animation, and a frisky musical wit."[113] Eric Smoodin writes in his book Animating Culture that the studio was trying to make up for earlier gender stereotypes with this film.[114] Smoodin also states that, in the way it has been viewed as bringing together traditional fairy tales and feminism as well as computer and traditional animation, the film's "greatness could be proved in terms of technology narrative or even politics".[115] Animation legend Chuck Jones praised the film, in a 1992 guest appearance on Later with Bob Costas he claimed he "Loved it. I think it should have won [Best Picture] ... I think the animation on the beast is one of the greatest pieces of animation I've seen".[116]
Animation historian Michael Barrier wrote that Belle "becomes a sort of intellectual less by actually reading books, it seems, than by hanging out with them", but says that the film comes closer than other "Disney-studio" films to "accepting challenges of the kind that the finest Walt Disney features met".[117] David Whitley writes in The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation that Belle is different from earlier Disney heroines in that she is mostly free from the burdens of domestic housework, although her role is somewhat undefined in the same way that "contemporary culture now requires most adolescent girls to contribute little in the way of domestic work before they leave home and have to take on the fraught, multiple responsibilities of the working mother". Whitley also notes other themes and modern influences, such as the film's critical view of Gaston's chauvinism and attitude towards nature, the cyborg-like servants, and the father's role as an inventor rather than a merchant.[118]
Beauty and the Beast has been named one of Disney's most critically acclaimed films.[119] In 2010, IGN named Beauty and the Beast as the greatest animated film of all time, directly ahead of WALL-E, The Incredibles, Toy Story 2, and The Iron Giant.[120]
Most critics regard the 1991 animated film as superior to the 2017 live-action remake. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune stated that the 1991 film "worked wonderfully because it was pure Broadway, written for the screen, blending comedy and romance and magic and just enough snark in the margins", while the 2017 remake got lost in translation since "The movie takes our knowledge and our interest in the material for granted. It zips from one number to another, throwing a ton of frenetically edited eye candy at the screen, charmlessly." Phillips also wrote of the 2017 film that "too often we're watching highly qualified performers, plus a few less conspicuously talented ones ..., stuck doing karaoke, or motion-capture work of middling quality".[121] Dana Schwartz of the Observer criticized some of the 2017 film changes to characters such as the Beast and Gaston as regressive by watering down their distinguishing personalities from the 1991 film, further arguing that the added backstory to the characters in the 2017 version failed to "advance the plot or theme in any meaningful way".[122] David Sims of The Atlantic wrote that the 2017 film "feels particularly egregious, in part, because it's so slavishly devoted to the original; every time it falls short of its predecessor (which is quite often), it's hard not to notice".[123]
Accolades[edit]
Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's song "Beauty and the Beast" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, while Menken's score won the award for Best Original Score.[124] Two other Menken and Ashman songs from the film, "Belle" and "Be Our Guest", were also nominated for Best Original Song.[124] Beauty and the Beast was the first picture to receive three Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song, a feat that would be repeated by The Lion King (1994), Dreamgirls (2006), and Enchanted (2007).[124] Academy rules have since been changed to limit each film to two nominations in this category, due to the consecutive unintentional failures of Dreamgirls and Enchanted to win the award.[124]
The film was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Sound.[124] It was the first animated film ever to be nominated for Best Picture, and remained the only animated film nominated until 2009 when the Best Picture field was widened to ten nominees, and it remains the only animated film nominated for the award when it had five nominees.[124] It was the third Disney film ever to be nominated for Best Picture, following Mary Poppins (1964) and Dead Poets Society (1989).[125] It became the first musical in twelve years to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year, following All That Jazz (1979), and the last one to be nominated until Moulin Rouge! (2001), ten years later.[124] It lost the Best Picture award to The Silence of the Lambs and the Best Sound award to Terminator 2: Judgment Day.[124] With six nominations, the film currently shares the record for the most nominations for an animated film with WALL-E (2008), although, with three nominations in the Best Original Song category, Beauty and the Beast's nominations span only four categories, while WALL-E's nominations cover six individual categories.[124]
While The Little Mermaid was the first to be nominated, Beauty and the Beast became the first animated film to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.[124] This feat was later repeated by The Lion King and Toy Story 2.[124]
In 2002, Beauty and the Beast was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten Top Ten" lists of the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres, based on polls of over 1,500 people from the creative community. Beauty and the Beast was acknowledged as the seventh-best film in the animation genre.[142][143] In previous lists, it ranked number 22 on the institute's list of best musicals and number 34 on its list of the best romantic American films.[144] On the list of the greatest songs from American films, Beauty and the Beast ranked number 62.[145]
American Film Institute recognition:
Sequels[edit]
The success of the film spawned three direct-to-video sequels: Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) and Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World (1998); and the prequel Belle's Tales of Friendship (1999), all of which take place in the timeline of the original. This was followed by a live-action spin-off television series, Sing Me a Story with Belle.