Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney based on Little Briar Rose by The Brothers Grimm and The Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault. The 16th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, it was released to theaters on January 29, 1959, by Buena Vista Distribution. This was the last Disney adaptation of a fairy tale for some years because of its initial disappointing box office gross and mixed critical reception; the studio did not return to the genre until 30 years later, after Walt Disney died, with the release of The Little Mermaid (1989).