The more I see of Mouse Guard, the more impressed I am with the amount of

high-quality work that went into the adaptation’s pre-production … and the more

pissed off I am that Disney axed it. The collateral damage from the $71.3 billion

buyout of Fox, where the Wes Ball-directed film was previously set up, not only

scuttles the adaptation of writer-illustrator David Petersen‘s medieval mouse

tale, it also cuts the legs out from under the artists, animators, and other below-

the-line specialists who were hoping to continue work on it.

On the bright side, Ball has taken to social media to share some of the existing

work. And it’s epic. This is a movie that, by all rights, should have made it to the

big screen in the next couple of years. Instead, we’ll have to be satisfied with this

behind-the-scenes video of concept art, maquettes, preliminary performance-

capture shots, costuming, and a demo sizzle reel showing off the “feel” of the

film. (A note on the demo reel: If you think it looks like a well-made video game,

that’s because it was done in Unreal Engine. Also, the video is just to establish

mood, scope, setting, and movement of the characters within their fantasy world,

which Weta would have used as inspiration to do the actual animation.)