MGM plans to adapt Robert C. O'Brien's award-winning children's book "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," Deadline reports.

Written by Michael Berg ("Ice Age"), the film will be a blend of live-action and CGI. The hope is the feature will launch a franchise.

Previously adapted by Don Bluth as the 1982 animated film "The Secret of NIMH," the book follows a widowed mouse named Mrs. Frisby who seeks the aid of a group of highly intelligent lab rats to save her home -- and her ailing son, who can't be moved -- from the looming threat of a farmer's plow.

Daniel Bobker and Ehren Kruger are on board to produce.