Unfortunately for Mouse Guard fans, Disney recently decided to pull the plug on the movie adaptation after acquiring the property from the Fox merger, even though it looked to be pretty far along in preproduction. After the official news broke, Mouse Guard creator David Petersen released a behind the scenes look at the production office. In the footage, it’s pretty clear how much time and effort was going into this project as tons of concept art and models had already been made.
Mouse Guard director Wes Ball also dropped a 10 minute demo reel on his YouTube channel, which has since been removed. This footage was more of a proof-of-concept in the Unreal Engine than what we’d actually see in the finished film, but it was still mighty impressive. Most notably, David Petersen divulged that the overall budget before advertising was a whopping $170 million with about $40 million of that slated for preproduction. That’s in line with a big blockbuster like Captain America: Winter Soldier, and only about $15 million short of Disney’s recently released Aladdin live-action remake. Sadly, the film was only two weeks away from starting principal photography before it got canned.
In David Petersen’s Twitch stream above, you can check out the behind the scenes office footage starting at minute 23 and the demo reel at minute 39. The whole two hours are great stuff because David goes in depth about his thoughts on what was and could have been with the movie, details about the demo reel (with Wes Ball himself dropping in!), the possibility of a Mouse Guard film getting revived and what’s next for the Mouse Guard book series. Below you can even listen to one of the musical themes by composer John Paesano.
If you were or are now excited about this film becoming a possibility, make sure you show your support and love for Mouse Guard and let Disney know you want it to happen.
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