 Upon seeing the initial storyboard reels in 1989 , Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg ordered that the film be scrapped and started over from scratch . A few months after starting anew , Purdum resigned as director . The studio had approached Ron Clements and John Musker to direct the film but turned down the offer saying they were " tired " after just having finished directing Disney 's recent success The Little Mermaid . Disney then hired first @-@ time feature directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale . Wise and Trousdale had previously directed the animated sections of Cranium Command , a short film for a Disney EPCOT theme park attraction . In addition , Katzenberg asked songwriters Howard Ashman and Alan Menken , who had written the song score for The Little Mermaid to turn Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway @-@ style musical film in the same vein as Mermaid . Ashman , who at the time had learned he was dying of complications from AIDS , had been working with Disney on a pet project of his , Aladdin , and only reluctantly agreed to join the struggling production team . To accommodate Ashman 's failing health , pre @-@ production of Beauty and the Beast was moved from London to the Residence Inn in Fishkill , New York , close to Ashman 's New York City home . Here , Ashman and Menken joined Wise , Trousdale , Hahn , and Woolverton in retooling the film 's script . Since the original story had only two major characters , the filmmakers enhanced them , added new characters in the form of enchanted household items who " add warmth and comedy to a gloomy story " and guide the audience through the film , and added a " real villain " in the form of Gaston . 
