Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The 30th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and the third film of the Disney Renaissance period, the film is based on the fairy tale La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont[3] and uses some ideas from the 1946 film of the same name.[4] The film centers around a prince who is transformed into a Beast and a young woman named Belle whom he imprisons in his castle. To become a prince again, the Beast must love Belle and win her love in return, or he will remain a Beast forever.

The film's animation screenplay was written by Linda Woolverton with story written by Roger Allers, Brenda Chapman, Chris Sanders, Burny Mattinson, Kevin Harkey, Brian Pimental, Bruce Woodside, Joe Ranft, Tom Ellery, Kelly Ashbury, and Robert Lence, directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and produced by Don Hahn. The music of the film was composed by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, both of whom had written the music and songs for Disney's The Little Mermaid. The film was dedicated to Ashman, who died before this film and its follow-up Aladdin were finished.

Beauty and the Beast was released on November 22, 1991. The film was a significant commercial and critical success during its initial release, and has now earned over $424 million in box office earnings throughout the world. Beauty and the Beast was also nominated for several awards, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, with two other awards for its music. Famously, Beauty and the Beast was the first ever animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and was the only animated film to hold this honor until 2009 and 2010, respectively, when Pixar's animated films Up and Toy Story 3 were nominated after the field was expanded from five to ten entries. Beauty and the Beast received a total of six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Original Score, Best Sound, and three nominations for its song. It ended up winning two, for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for the song "Beauty and the Beast". In 2002, Beauty and the Beast was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

A direct-to-video midquel called Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas was released in 1997. It was followed in 1998 by another midquel, Belle's Magical World, and later by a stage production of the same name and a television spin-off series, Sing Me a Story with Belle. An IMAX special edition version of the original film was released in 2002, with a new five-minute musical sequence included. After the success of the 3D re-release of The Lion King, the film returned to theaters in 3D on January 13, 2012.