The Hunchback of Notre Dame (My Version)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1996 American animated musical comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and American Zoetrope and released to theaters on June 21, 1996 by Walt Disney Pictures. The thirty-fourth animated feature in the Disney Animated Canon, the film is loosely based on Victor Hugo's novel of the same name, but changed most of its substance to make it more family-friendly. The plot centers on Esmeralda, the Gypsy dancer, Claude Frollo, a powerful and ruthless Minister of Justice who lusts after her and plans to commit genocide by killing all of the gypsies that live in Paris, Quasimodo, the protagonist, Notre Dame's kindhearted and deformed bell-ringer, who adores her (and struggles to gain acceptance into society as well as save the Gypsies who live in Paris from Frollo who plans to kill them all), and Phoebus, the chivalrous but irreverent military captain, who holds affections for her.

The film was directed and co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola (in his animated directorial debut), the director of The Godfather trilogy and Bram Stoker's Dracula, from a screenplay written by Tab Murphy and James V. Hart, the writer of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Muppet Treasure Island with a screen story by Murphy, Hart, Bob Tzudiker and Noni White, who would go on to write the screenplay for Tarzan, and Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts who had previously worked together on The Lion King, and produced by Fred Fuchs and Don Hahn, the producer of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. It stars Tom Hulce, Demi Moore, Tony Jay, Kevin Kline, Paul Kandel, David Ogden Stiers, Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough and Mary Wickes (in her final film role) and features the songs for the musical film were composed by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. It belongs to the era known as the Disney Renaissance.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame premiered on June 19, 1996 at the New Orleans Superdome and was released worldwide on June 21, 1996. It received positive reviews from critics who praised Coppola's direction, screenplay, songs, animation, musical score and voice performances and was a box office success, earning over $325 million worldwide.