Beauty and the Beast (1991 soundtrack) a lullaby, Ashman and Menken conceived "Beauty and the Beast" as "a song that could have a life outside the movie." The film's final musical number, "The Mob Song", was written as what Menken described as "a macho adventure underscore". When the film was released, it garnered three separate Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song for "Belle", "Be Our Guest" and "Beauty and the Beast". Producer Don Hahn expressed concern that this would cause confusion among audiences and voters, and potentially result in an unfavorable tie. In order to prevent this from happening, the studio fought in favor of
Gaston (Beauty and the Beast) from filmmaker Jean Cocteau's 1946 film adaptation of the fairy tale into their own version of "Beauty and the Beast". Gaston, a character who does not exist in the original fairy tale, was among several elements borrowed from the live-action version of the story, based on a character Cocteau himself had created specifically for his film: Avenant, portrayed by French actor Jean Marais who also plays the Beast in a dual role. Similar to Cocteau's addition of Avenant, Gaston was created for the animated adaptation because Disney felt that the story could potentially benefit from a legitimate villain, which the