Background
After making the decision to turn the Richard Purdum-directed Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway-style musical film similar to The Little Mermaid (1989), Disney CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg hired the Academy Award-winning Little Mermaid songwriting team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken to write the songs for the film. At first Ashman, who had just recently been diagnosed with HIV and was already writing songs for his recently-pitched film idea Aladdin, was reluctant to join the struggling production team, but eventually agreed. In response to the film's stylistic transition to a musical, Purdum resigned, and Katzenberg replaced him with first-time feature film directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale.
"Beauty and the Beast" was originally written by Ashman and Menken as a rock song. Actress Angela Lansbury was initially hesitant to record the song because of its unfamiliar style. Simply advised to "sing the song the way envisioned it," Lansbury successfully recorded the song in what Alan Menken described as "one take".
According to producer Don Hahn, the studio couldn't afford to higher a "big singer" to record "Beauty and the Beast", so they hired then-virtually unknown Canadian singer Celine Dion. Because of her obscurity, the filmmakers "worried about her singing it alone." To provide security, they "paired her with Peabo Bryson, who was a bigger star at the time."
Read more about this topic: Beauty And The Beast (Disney Song)
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