too dark and dramatic. As a result, in December 1989, Purdum amicably resigned as director. At the time, Trousdale and Wise were developing Goofy of the Apes, a spoof of Tarzan of the Apes starring Goofy. Trousdale and Wise received a phone call from Charlie Fink, the studio's vice president of creative affairs, requesting they board "a plane next Monday for New York". Recalling their success on Cranium Command, Katzenberg had been considered them as potential candidates to direct the film. Both men met with Katzenberg, Howard Ashman, Peter Schneider, Don Hahn, and Linda Woolverton to begin overhauling the story, and subsequently flew back to Glendale. Within three months, they served as acting directors before they became the film's official directors. As directors, Trousdale directed the live-action reference footage and supervised the layout and special effects, while Wise supervised the character animation and character cleanup. Both directors nevertheless were involved in the art direction, storyboarding, voice recording, editing, and background design. Beauty and the Beast was released to critical acclaim, and by February 1992, it became the first animated film to gross $100 million in North America alone. The film was subsequently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, becoming the first animated film to achieve this feat. That same month, Trousdale and Wise helped to rewrite The Lion King (1994), working alongside Hahn, Roger Allers, Brenda Chapman, and Chris Sanders to conceive a new story outline in two days. For about a year, Trousdale and Wise developed Song of the Sea, an animated retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice but with humpback whales. However, in 1993, both directors received a phone call from Katzenberg, telling them: Guys, drop everything—you're working on Hunchback now. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) reunited most of the production team that had worked on Beauty and the Beast (1991), with the inclusion of two Parisian-based animators Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi. Together, they embarked to create a more complex, literary, and sophisticated film than its predecessor. During the film's production, in November 1995, Trousdale and Wise signed a long-term contract extension with Disney. Upon release, the film earned $325 million worldwide, though it received a mixed response from film critics. In October 1996, Trousdale, Wise, Hahn, and screenwriter Tab Murphy decided their next film should be an action-adventure film during lunch at a Mexican restaurant. The resulting film became Atlantis: The