"Beauty and the Beast" made history by becoming the first animated movie to get an Oscar nomination for best picture. However, it didn't take home the trophy that year, with "The Silence of the Lambs" claiming the prize instead. However, Disney wasn't giving up its dreams of Oscar gold. This was especially true of then-head of Walt Disney Studios Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was determined to oversee the movie that would make Oscar history for the Mouse House.
The film that Katzenberg saw as having the most potential to nab that golden trophy was "Pocahontas." For this executive, "Pocahontas" was similar enough to "Beauty and the Beast" — in being a more serious romantic drama — that it could appeal to the Academy and warrant a best picture win. The fact that "Dances with Wolves" — another movie heavily focused on the relationship between Native Americans and white settlers — had recently won at the 63rd Academy Awards was possibly informing Katzenberg's aspirations.
In fact, Katzenberg had so much confidence in this prediction that it even impacted how he viewed other titles in the company's pipeline. He apparently compared "Pocahontas" favorably to fellow upcoming Disney Animation project "The Lion King" by noting that the former movie would inevitably have more appeal than the latter. History ended up painting a different picture, but these ambitions do indicate the kind of hopes Disney once had for this musical.
