Pocahontas (1995 film)

Pocahontas is a 1995 American animated musical historical drama film based on the life of Powhatan woman Pocahontas and the arrival of English colonial settlers from the Virginia Company. The film romanticizes Pocahontas' encounter with John Smith and her legendary saving of his life. The film was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 33rd Disney animated feature film and the sixth film produced and released during the Disney Renaissance. The film was directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg (in his feature directorial debut) and produced by Jim Pentecost, from a screenplay written by Philip LaZebnik, Carl Binder, and Susannah Grant. The voice cast features Irene Bedard and Mel Gibson as Pocahontas and Smith, respectively, with David Ogden Stiers, Russell Means, Christian Bale, Billy Connolly, and Linda Hunt providing other voices. The score was composed by Alan Menken, who also wrote the film's songs with lyricist Stephen Schwartz. After making his directorial debut with The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Gabriel conceived the film during a Thanksgiving weekend. The project went into development concurrently with The Lion King (1994), and attracted most of Disney's top animators. Meanwhile, Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the film should be an emotional romantic epic in the vein of Beauty and the Beast (1991), in hope that like Beauty, it would also be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Screenwriters Binder, Grant, and LaZebnik took creative liberties with history in an attempt to make the film palatable to audiences. Pocahontas premiered at Central Park on June 10, 1995, and was released in the United States on June 16, to mixed reactions from reviewers, who praised its animation, voice performances, and music, but criticized its story with its lack of focus on tone. The film's historical inaccuracies and artistic license received polarized responses. Pocahontas earned over $346 million at the box office.