Why Gooseberry, the open animation film, matters

Several companies (Cinesite is a prime example - they underbid on John Carter heavily) underbid in the hope they'll be picked for future films as well.

And because VFX is generally the last (ignoring final grading) part of doing a film (occasionally the VFX for shots is still being done up to 2 weeks before the film's released), there's a hard deadline set that the VFX companies most of the time have to meet.

Often, while doing the VFX, the director's changed their mind several times regarding what they actually want, and any planning / previz that was done to agree on the shot is wasted, as is a lot of the work that was done do get to that point. You can often reuse assets and stuff, but that's about it if there's a change of plans.

Thankfully over the past few years, previz of VFX is getting more and more realistic (in terms of animation / layout - the look is still quite crap), giving directors a more accurate view of what they'll be getting at the end.

Story is the last thing in the world we should be undervaluing. Look at Pixar. Pixar made some fantastic advances in animation. That's not the only reason, or even the primary reason, why its movies perform so well. They do well because they are exceptionally well written, they have heart, and they are firing on all creative cylinders: tech, writing, directing, acting, post production, music, etc. John Lassiter himself will often credit story with the success of his movies.

Ideas for movies are cheap, just like ideas for tech companies are cheap. But story execution is extraordinarily hard, every bit as hard as putting the effects together.

My guess is that a lot of folks don't understand how hard writing great fiction can be. So they tend to dismiss it. They take it for granted. Or they over-attribute the success of their favorite movies, books, etc., to the elements that are most immediately visible: the actors, the effects, the direction, etc. All of these things are important, but they'd be entirely worthless without a strong story. Michael Bay movies are fantastic examples of what happens when you combine A-list actors with AAA special effects while devaluing story.