JIM HILL WRITES:
Disney Feature Animation saw "B & B" as a way to keep the London-based "Roger Rabbit" production team busy & intact. Which is why -- initially -- Disney tried to recruit "WFRR" 's animation director, Richard Williams, to direct "Beauty & the Beast."
And -- for a while there -- Richard reportedly did give some semi-serious thought to directing "B & B." But then Williams realized that -- if he put in the time necessary to complete Disney's "Beauty & the Beast" -- that would be another four years away from working on his own dream project, "The Cobbler & the Thief." A traditionally animated epic that -- at that time -- Richard had already been working on for over 20 years.
Realizing that it was really time that he got back to work cobbling together "Cobbler," Williams turned down Disney's offer. Which is why the powers-that-be at WDFA eventually recruited Richard Purdum -- a well respected British animator who ran his own studio in London -- to serve as "Beauty & the Beast" 's director.
And Christ - it's 5:43 AM here and I'm typing and a lot of people are up. Must be time zones. It's a normal early hour on the east coast, I guess ....
I should sleep.