Beauty and the Beast Original Screenplay

Background
In late 1989, when The Little Mermaid was nearly complete, the Disney company approached Richard Willams, animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and asked him to write a screenplay for Beauty and the Beast. However, Williams wanted to continue working on his lifelong project The Thief and the Cobbler, but suggested his collegue Richard Purdum. A team of animators which included Andreas Deja, Mel Shaw, Glen Keane, Don Hahn, Tom Sito and Hans Bacher travelled to Purdum's studio in London and spent the next several months putting together a screenplay, the storyreels for which were included on the Diamond and Platinum edition DVD releases of the final film. However, Jeffery Katzenburg deemed the screenplay "too dark and too dramatic" prompting Purdum to resign as director.

Plotline
The screenplay began with Belle's family moving to a small cottage in the country after Maurice inexplicaby lost his fortune. Shortly thereafter, Belle celebrated her 17th birthday and was given her mother's music box as a gift. However, after being told that he was to lose the house if he didn't pay his taxes, Maurice proceeded to sell the music box, but it accidentally got broken while he was looking for a potential buyer. While trying to return home, Maurice was chased by wolves and wound up at the Beast's castle. Meanwhile Belle's aunt tried to marry her off to Gaston but she was reluctant because she didn't love him. Little is known about how the story was to continue from there, but concept art shows that i n the climax of the film, much like in the final version, Gaston and his forces confronted the Beast at his castle, and proceeded to fight off several of the enchanted objects, before Gaston personally entered a duel with the Beast. However, the duel was to have ended in the Beast knocking Gaston over a wall.

Differences between the screenplay and the final film

 * The film, in particular on Belle's portion of the story, was much closer to the original fairy-tale.
 * Maurice, Belle's father, was a merchant instead of an eccentric inventor.
 * Belle's family had two additional members: her younger sister, Clarice and her snobbish Aunt Marguerite
 * Gaston, instead of the town hero and a hunter, was a foppish marquess (French Nobleman).
 * Phillipe was named Orson, and in addition Belle's family owned a pet cat named Charley.
 * The Enchanted Objects communicated through pantomime.