What made Pixar decide to do Brave?

[DodgerGirl]

I always wondered how Pixar decided to come up with Brave? Because I never thought that Pixar could do Princess movies and especially since Merida is the first Pixar human princess "the other princesses where Princess Atta and Princess Dot who were ants from A Bug's Life". So I wondered how Brave came to be? I also knew that Brave had a different storyline and working title known as The Bear And The Bow before being changed to Brave. It really is surprising that you don't see Kelly McDonald provide Merida's voice outside of Brave and it seems that Merida became hugely underrated as a Disney Princess. Was Brave somewhat of a hit when it debuted?

 

[DodgerGirl]

I think what really made Brave somewhat of a hit was because Pixar put a cast of Scottish celebrity voice talent to provide the character voices in Brave and I had never heard of Kelly McDonald before but she really brought Merida to life in such a nice way. But how Craig Ferguson played Lord Mcintosh seemed odd because Craig is a talk show/game show host and how he got into animated movies as a voice actor is beyond me. But I think why Brave became somewhat of a hit was because Merida is a strong role model for girls. But Disney is smart to put Merida in the Disney Princess line to sell more merchandise with Merida in it