Disney group has become an entertainment giant with unprecedented powers. It owns the rights to Star Wars, Pixar, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and the Marvel Universe (producer of The Avengers) in addition to classics such as The Lion King and The Jungle Book.
However, in the late 1980s, the company's cartoon division was on the brink until a man used his music to bring magic to three films that are still alive in the memory of an entire generation of cartoon fans to this day.
Howard Ashman wrote the lyrics for Ariel the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. Disney + has produced a new documentary that depicts the incomplete success of Ashman, the man who "gave a voice to a mermaid and a soul to a beast." He was 40 when he died due to AIDS complications in 1991 – six months before the launch of The Beauty and The Beast.
The documentary, currently available on Disney+, is directed and produced by Don Hahn. "Ashman took Disney in a new direction. I believe this is the accurate description. Everyone happily admits that Howard was the catalyst. He was the spark that ignited the torch."
The 95-minute documentary describes Ashman's life from his birth in Baltimore and his life in New York, to his first big success with the "Little Shop of Horrors" and the Oscars he won for "Under the Sea" in "The Little Mermaid" and the theme song in "The Beauty and the Beast".
