"I feel very lucky that I got to come back," says Hoppers director Daniel Chong of returning to Pixar at Pete Docter's invitation, years after leaving, to pitch ideas for an animated feature film. "When I left, I remember saying goodbye to the studio, thinking I would never be back there again. So to come back and then be coming back to direct, it felt really special, and it was really good to reconnect with that place, because it was such an important place for my career."
Chong had three pitches for Pixar, but it was the unlikeliest of all of them that was ultimately chosen. "They ask you to pitch three, and Hoppers was the last idea I pitched, and it was not the one I thought they were going to pick," Chong explains. "I almost treat it more like a joke that I threw in there at the end, but I think they saw through it. They thought it could be a pretty good idea. And I think they were right. So, I ended up just making that movie."
