Part 1 of 4.The Making Of Walt Disney's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1996 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released to theaters on June 21, 1996 by Walt Disney Pictures. The 34th animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, the film is inspired by Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. While the basic structure remains, the film differs greatly from its source material. The plot centers on the teenaged Gypsy dancer, Esmeralda; Claude Frollo, a powerful and ruthless judge who lusts after her; Quasimodo, the protagonist, Notre Dame's kind-hearted but deformed bellringer, who adores her; and Phoebus, the chivalrous if irreverent military captain, who holds affections for her.The film was directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, directors of Beauty and the Beast, and produced by Don Hahn, producer of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. The songs for the musical film were composed by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, and the film featured the voices of Tom Hulce, Demi Moore, Kevin Kline, Paul Kandel, Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough, David Ogden Stiers, Tony Jay, and Mary Wickes (in her final film role). It belongs to the era known as Disney Renaissance.The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the second Disney film directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise after the hugely successful Beauty and the Beast in 1991. The duo had read Victor Hugo's novel and were eager to make an adaptation, but made several changes in order to make the storyline more suitable for children. This included making the film's heroes, Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and Phoebus, kinder than in the novel (Phoebus, in particular, was a villain in the novel), adding three anthropomorphized stone gargoyles in the form of sidekicks, and keeping Quasimodo and Esmeralda alive at the end.The Hunchback of Notre Dame opened on June 21, 1996 to overwhelmingly positive reviews, and was the highest critically acclaimed film of 1996. Some criticism, however, was provided by fans of Victor Hugos novel, who were very unhappy with the changes Disney made to the material. Critics such as Arnaud Laster, a leading scholar on Hugo, accused Disney of simplifying, editing and censoring the novel in many aspects, including the personalities of the characters.In its opening weekend, the film opened in second place at the box office, grossing $21 million. The film saw small decline in later weeks and ultimately grossed just over $100 million domestically and over $325 million worldwide. Although the film could not out-gross its predecessors, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and Pocahontas it nevertheless out-grossed other Disney films released within a decade of its premiere, such as The Little Mermaid, and Hercules.
