The problem is that every time people have deviated from the Disney playbook in hand-drawn animation, they've done so with staff that are nowhere near Disney-level talent or Disney-level budgets.
Brad BirdWhen you assemble animation teams the way you do a live-action film, you're often struggling a bit to get a cohesive team together, so if you have a team that works well together, you're hoping for another film so that you can refine the team.
Brad BirdI think the industry tends to like to think in the narrow sort of mindset of a businessman, and businessman absolutes, and movies really exist in a much grayer region of dreams and stuff like that, and instinct is prized in movies, it's not prized with the businessmen in movies, but movies themselves often reward instinct rather than pie charts.
Brad Bird