MGM Will Re-Visit NIMH

MGM has optioned the rights for Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

Based on the Newbery Medal-winning book by Robert C. O’Brien, the new version’s screenplay will be written by Michael Berg, who’s written all five of the Ice Age films. Berg’s version will be an origin of sorts, with the focus on a mouse who befriends a “comical crew of lab rats as they turn hyper-intelligent” and escape a secret lab. They become the great minds of the vermin, and they have to outwit the humans out to recapture them.

MGM is hoping to launch a franchise with this version. The book had two sequels and spawned an animated feature, The Secret of NIMH, directed by Don Bluth. MGM released that version in 1982, and then the rights were at Paramount for a time. Now, MGM plans a combination of live action and CGI