What Happened to That “Mouse Guard” Movie?

The first of several assumed casualties of the Disney purchase of Fox was unfortunately the film adaptation of David Petersen’s Eisner-winning comic book, “Mouse Guard“. Scrapped just two weeks before production was set to kick off, the animated film was pulled.

Although reports suggested that Disney was allowing director Wes Ball (“Maze Runner“) to “shop” the project around to other studios, it didn’t seem at all promising.

Ball just spoke with Deadline about the entire ordeal (read it here), and about that AMAZING test footage he chose to release, without permission from Disney. The footage is unavailable now, so chances are it was pulled by the studio.

“The truth is, it was being done for a modest budget,” Ball said about the rumors the project had been axed due to a conflated budget. “Compared to a lot of big animated movies, we were pretty cheap, but now that nobody picked up the tab, we have to reassess everything, as our crew scattered to the wind,” Ball said. “Those budget numbers always get fuzzy, but we had an outside financier committing to half the budget, and we qualified for the L.A. tax credit.”

And about that footage, Ball admitted:

“Well, maybe I should have asked permission before I posted that footage. I might be in a bit of trouble. But a lot of artists worked very hard here, and it broke my heart that nobody was doing to see their work. I gave up no spoilers, this was a teaser done as a test, and I hoped it might help the movie. But I wish I had asked.”

Never fear though, if the stars align and a new studio does pick up the project, Ball says all the digital assets are safely stored and packed away.

“Even though the machine has been disassembled, the beautiful thing is there is this digital movie all designed and resting inside a video game engine, and it all exists on a hard drive,” he said. “If we should decide to relaunch, even if we approach it in a different way, all those assets we built are there and we can dive back in. Someone told me 15 years ago, heat comes and goes, but talent never dies. This film will be as relevant in five years as it is now. I have faith in that and maybe the attention [for posting the pre-viz footage] will inspire someone to take this on. All I want is to see the audience in theaters react to all the incredible things we dreamed up here.”

We’re still very sad this happened to “Mouse Guard“, hopefully someday we’ll see Ball and co’s vision brought to the screen.