[bladegash]

Huh?

Disney Animation Studios (not Pixar) has made three movies in the last ten years that are among the highest grossing movies of all time (Frozen, Zootopia, and Frozen II).

In terms of quality, anecdotally two of my personal favorite Disney movies ever were done by them within that timespan as well (Moana and Encanto).

My impression has been that the gap between Disney Animation Studios and Pixar has drastically narrowed.

[jjbickerstaffe]

Disney bought Pixar in 2006 and put Ed Catmull of Pixar and John Lasseter of Pixar in charge of both Disney animation and Pixar.

[bladegash]

I am not sure what your point is? They are two very distinct and independent animation studios, which OP seemed to be aware of.

[jjbickerstaffe]

Sorry I wasn't super clear. I was replying to "the gap between Disney Animation Studios and Pixar has drastically narrowed", and commenting that the reason this happened is because from 2006 it was Pixar management in charge of Disney animation. Ed Catmull and John Lasseter brought over the lessons and management style that they had learned at Pixar and thus changed how Disney animation was run. So for instance they created a Disney "Story Trust" to provide feedback to directors in the same vein as the Pixar "Brain Trust". They also removed an oversight committee at Disney that was charged with keeping all film projects on budget, but in their view was holding back the film-making. i.e. the two studios are not as distinct and independent as it appears people are suggesting.

[bladegash]

Ah, gotcha, thank you for clarifying. That makes much more sense and I think it is a fair correlation to draw!