The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996 film) June 21, 1996 to generally positive reviews and was a commercial success, grossing over $325 million worldwide and becoming the fifth highest-grossing release of 1996. The film received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for Menken's musical score. A darker, more Gothic stage adaptation of the film, was rewritten and directed by James Lapine and produced by Walt Disney Theatrical in Berlin, Germany, as "Der Glöckner von Notre Dame", and ran from 1999 to 2002. A direct-to-video sequel, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame II", was released in 2002. In 1482 Paris, Clopin, a gypsy puppeteer, narrates the origin of
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (musical) save herself; Esmeralda answers by spitting in his face. Angered, he orders her pyre to be lit. Quasimodo swings down on a rope from the bell tower down to the pyre and unties Esmeralda before taking her back to the bell tower and invoking Notre Dame's status as a sanctuary in an appeal for protection. Frollo orders the Cathedral Guard to retake the church by force if necessary. Clopin frees Phoebus; the two rally the people of Paris to fight against the guards, but the guards are still able to break in. To stop them, Quasimodo dumps molten lead used