Don Bluth had a pretty good run directing animated films in the '80s and '90s, with his first project after leaving Disney an adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's classic children's book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. It was turned into a memorable 1982 feature film, The Secret of NIMH, followed by straight-to-DVD sequel sixteen years later. Now MGM is looking to return to the land of NIMH by developing a live-action remake.
According to Deadline, MGM has picked up the rights to O'Brien's book and have set Ice Age 5 writer Michael Berg to work on the script. Surprisingly it's being planned as a live-action/CGI hybrid, which should be interesting since the story largely centers on a group of talking rats. The film sounds as if it will follow closely to O'Brien's book (Bluth's movie didn't) and center on "an imperiled mouse protagonist befriends a comical crew of lab rats as they turn hyper-intelligent. They escape a secret laboratory and become the great minds of vermin civilization, forced to outwit the humans hot on their tails."
There were two more books in the NIMH series, one written by O'Brien and another by his daughter. So if this film is a hit you can expect MGM to build a franchise around it. Presumably this also means Paramount's planned NIMH feature, which had Neil Burger (Divergent) attached at one point, is no longer happening.
