Concept Artist on Scrapped Mouse Guard Adaptation Shares New Look at the Project

The big-screen adaptation of Mouse Guard was one of the biggest casualties yet of the Disney/Fox merger, when the film was put on hold back in April. While there’s no telling if and when the film will hit the screen, we have a look at what it could have looked like. Concept artist Darek Zabrocki recently shared a look at one of the early designs for the film, which brings to life the mouse kingdom and the designs of some mice.

Back when the film was first scrapped at Disney, reports indicated that the project would be shopped elsewhere, but no updates have come up since then. Mouse Guard was expected to follow a brotherhood of mice in a medieval era, with a cast that includes Idris Elba, Andy Serkis, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and Sonoya Mizuno. The film, was slated to be directed by Wes Ball, with a sizeable budget and the same WETA technology that was used to bring the apes to life in the most-recent Planet of the Apes trilogy to recreate the animals from author David Petersen’s world.

“Not to make any news or anything, but I think that will be my next movie,” Petersen explained in a previous interview. “I kind of went off after this movie, had a vacation and was sort of dreaming about what could be next, but if all goes according to plan this might be it. It could be pretty special, actually. We’re just in the early stages, of course, but it’s gonna be a giant friggin’ movie. My next movie is probably going to cost what my last three movies combined cost. It’s kinda crazy, because it’s going to be one giant visual effects movie, essentially. It’s a fairly beloved little comic series, same as Maze Runner in a lot of ways. There’s a lot of people who love these books.”

“The trick with this one is we have to thread that needle with tone,” he explained. “I’m not interested in doing a DreamWorks or Pixar-type movie, I’m interested in doing something closer to Planet of the Apes where you’re really gonna nail characters and show the harsh reality of what they live in. It’s gonna be a little bit of both, probably, but at the same time because of the cost I need as big an audience as possible. So I want 10-year olds to see this as much as 40 and 50-year olds, you know? That’s the needle we have to thread, but for me personally… the way Star Wars appealed to me as a kid growing up hit that tone in a weird way. It appealed to the kid in everybody but still took itself seriously. That’s really exciting to me, that kind of film, that kind of target, but obviously set in this really harsh world of mice and swords.”

What do you think of this Mouse Guard concept art? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!