Only a few weeks into Disney's acquisition of Fox and already we've seen the hammer come down on a few projects. That was to be expected as the Mouse House evaluates everything they have, but it was assumed certain things were safe. The medieval epic Mouse Guard looked like one of those, however that's turned out not to be the case.
According to THR, Disney has halted production on Mouse Guard just two weeks before it was to start. The motion-capture film was to be directed by Wes Ball (The Maze Runner) and had amassed a strong cast including Andy Serkis, Idris Elba, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Samson Kayo, and Jack Whitehall as warrior mice defending their realm from outside threats.
No reason was given by Disney, of course, but we have to assume it's a movie they had been looking at for a while. It's suggested they may have seen it as too similar to their other CGI films such as The Lion King and The Jungle Book. They might have seen the $170M price tag a bit steep for their Fox branch, which is said to be focusing on lower-to-mid budget projects.
Mouse Guard's producers, which includes The Batman director Matt Reeves, have been given the green light to shop the film around to other studios. So all is not lost and we may see the film get picked up elsewhere. It also has to make you wonder what other Fox films Disney may decide to cut.
