Corona | Coming Attractions

A new film based on Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is in the works at Paramount Pictures. The studio is in talks with director/screenwriter Neil Burger (The Illusionist, Bride of Frankenstein) to adapt the 1971 children's novel and has already struck a deal with producer Cary Granat to produce the picture.

If the title sounds familiar you're right; O'Brien's book was turned into an animated movie called The Secret of NIMH that was released in 1982 and directed by Don Bluth. The story centers on a mother field mouse named Mrs. Frisby who has an ill child. When she discovers that her home will be destroyed when the farmer's field is to be plowed, Frisby sets out to get help from a secret community of super-intelligent lab rats that her deceased husband was a part of. The '82 movie did moderate business when it was first released but slowly gained a greater awareness on its cable airings.

It's a different cinema today for animated features and children's book adaptations than it was back in the early 1980s. Twenty-five years ago even the titan of animation, Disney, found it hard to sell their toons to kids that were growing up in the shadow of Star Wars and other similar movies that utilized special effects. Today the game has changed and numerous major studios as well as independent production companies are developing traditional and CG animated features, as well as the quasi live-action/CG character hybrids like this past weekend's number one movie at the box office, G-Force. In their coverage of the new NIMH movie, The Hollywood Reporter believes that Paramount is likely to pursue that latter option and make their NIMH rats CG creations while the rest of the picture will be live-action.