Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-25178929-20141024050546/@comment-17623-20141024103528

I doubt it's that Hanabi is popular. More convenient.

Can't capture Hinata because she needs to be a presence throughout the entire movie to interact with the other heroes (ha ha ha ha ha!). But someone with a Byakugan needs to be taken to justify a Byakugan user (for whatever reason) and Neji is both male and dead so he was never really an option.