Director Wes Ball, who was poised to helm a CG-animated adaptation of BOOM! Studios/Archaia's Mouse Guard before the project was canceled, has shared an elaborate nine-minute concept video to give fans a taste of what could have been.
"The following is a collection of tests that explore the visual potential of a Mouse Guard movie," Ball wrote in his YouTube post. "Everything you see here is rendered in realtime using Epic's UNREAL ENGINE."
"Basically what you're watching is very good looking previz, with environments capable of streaming live to stage during motion capture with our actors," he continued. Ball also noted, "While the visual quality is impressive, it's important to note this is only meant to illustrate how the movie will 'feel' not how it will 'look'."
Ball's post comes shortly after concept artist Darek Zabrocki released some of his mockups from the film, which was going to be released by 20th Century Fox but was ultimately canceled by Disney after the latter acquired Fox's assets.
Based on Eisner-winning comics created by David Petersen, Mouse Guard is set in a medieval-style world in which an order of mice are the sworn protectors of their realm, fending off other mice and predators.
It's not entirely clear why the project was scrapped, but in a recent tweet, Ball said, "Seems it's too big a risk," after confirming once and for all that Mouse Guard is dead.