Fox is developing NIMH, an adult-targeted animated series based on the books that inspired Don Bluth's classic 1982 animated fantasy adventure movie The Secret of NIMH.
According to Deadline, the network gave a script commitment to NIMH and is now searching for a writer to get the ball rolling on the show. The series is part of Fox's initiative to develop more animated programing intended for older viewers, including Dan Harmon's Krapopolis, the first animated show curated on the blockchain. Harmon's comedy series centers on a family of humans, gods and monsters from ancient mythological Greece that attempts to run one of the world's first cities.
The Secret of NIMH revolves around Mrs. Brisby, a widowed field mouse who seeks out the rats of NIMH, a group of escaped lab rats with heightened mental capabilities, to help move her home -- and her sick son with it -- before the local farmer plows their field. Bluth's film adapts Robert C. O'Brien's 1971 novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, itself the winner of the Newbery Medal. After O'Brien's death in 1973, his daughter Jane Leslie Conly authored a pair of quasi-sequels: 1986's Racso and the Rats of NIMH and 1990's R-T, Margaret, and the Rats of NIMH.
“We’re really ramping up our own content, making deals with creators to own our own animation,” said Fox Entertainment president Michael Thorn. “There are exceptions, where we’re working with other partners to help grow our slate, doing [The Flinstones project] Bedrock with Warner Bros and Clue with eOne, but ownership is definitely a key part of it.”
NIMH isn't the first attempt at re-adapting O'Brien and Conly's source material for the screen since The Secret of NIMH. In 2009, Paramount hired Divergent director Neil Burger to pen the script for a live-action/animated film adaptation of the story that never made it off the ground. MGM would try again six years later after picking up the rights to O'Brien's first book, with Ice Age movie writer Michael Berg handling the screenplay.
MGM continued to develop its NIMH movie adaptation until 2019, when the Russo Brothers came aboard as producers. However, Fox's animated series appears to be the only NIMH-related project in the works for the time being.
Source: Deadline
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