After "Beauty and the Beast" (1991) was unprecedentedly nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards, then-studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg opted to produce another animated romance film in the hopes of achieving a similar feat. While "Aladdin" (1992) and "The Lion King" (1994) were considered to be too far into development, Katzenberg deemed "Pocahontas" a promising candidate, and thus pushed for the heroine to be older, the romance between her and Smith to be more mature, and the animals to be mute. Head of Story Tom Sito went on the record stating he wanted to include "broader" jokes, but the "higher-ups wanted it more winsome, more gentle. Some of the folks were so concerned about political correctness, they didn't want to be cuckoo-wacky about it."