Watch a Beautiful Proof-of-Concept Animated Demo Reel From Fox's Canceled MOUSE GUARD Movie
Mouse Guard was an animated film being developed by Fox and director Wes Ball (The Maze Runner) before Disney bought the studio. Shortly after the deal closed, Mouse Guard was one of the first movies to be canceled.
The movie was going to be an adaptation of David Petersen's two-time Eisner-winning graphic novel series. Mouse Guard has been described as Game of Thrones for mice. “Set in a human-free, medieval world, the comic follows the so-called ‘Mouse Guard,’ a group of mice who have sworn to protect their brethren from predators and other threats.”
The film also has a great cast that included Andy Serkis, Idris Elba, Samson Kayo, and Thomas Brodie-Sangster. Serkis was going to play the villain Midnight, “a former Guard blacksmith who betrayed the order; Elba was set to take on the role of Celanawe, a former hero who was considered dead but is found; Brodie-Sangster was tapped to play Lieam, a young newbie to the Guard and Kayo was slated for Saxson, a rogue with a difficult temper.” Jack Whitehall was in talks for the role of Kenzie, “a calm staff-wielder who often partners with Saxson.”
It’s a shame the movie isn’t going to get made. It’s officially dead in the water, so the director shared a couple of videos for us to watch that shows us what they were working on, and it looks like it would have been an incredible fantasy film!
The first video comes from a tweet that Ball posted that shows off the production offices for Mouse Guard. It’s packed full of cool concept art, character models, set designs, animation tests, and some of the previous work that was done for the characters.
The second video is a proof-of-concept demo reel that explores “the visual potential of a Mouse Guard movie.” Everything in the video was rendered in realtime using Epic's UNREAL ENGINE. This seriously looks like it would have been a beautiful movie. After seen the stuff that was created for it, I’m really bummed out that the movie isn’t going to get made.
I’m impressed by what the creative team at Weta Workshop was creating for this movie! It’s crazy to me that Disney wouldn’t want to move forward with it!
Check out the videos for yourself below and let us know what you think about what Ball and his team were doing with bringing this story to life.
Yes sadly, its true. Our #mouseguard movie is dead.
— Wes Ball (@wesball) June 26, 2019
Seems it's too big a risk. It’s a damn shame really. We had something special. To my hella talented cast/crew: I’m sorry I couldn’t push this one through. The past year with you all has been a blast. May the Guard prevail! pic.twitter.com/MGRq54uI6O