I have been hearing that an apparent remake of
The Secret of NIMH is currently in development by MGM. At first, I believed it to be a rumor with only seeing one or two articles about it, but now several other websites are reporting it. MGM had announced the project on March 6 via their facebook page and included a news article along with their post, which you can read about
by clicking here. There is currently no release date set.
- From the Article wrote:
- EXCLUSIVE: MGM has acquired the award-winning Robert C. O’Brien children’s book Mrs. Frisby & The Rats Of Nimh and set Ice Age 5 scribe Michael Berg to write the script. Daniel Bobker and Ehren Kruger will produce through their Bobker/Kruger label. The film will be done as a live-action/CGI hybrid, and Berg is focusing on an origin story in which an imperiled mouse protagonist befriends a comical crew of lab rats as they turn hyper-intelligent. They escape a secret laboratory and become the great minds of vermin civilization, forced to outwit the humans hot on their tails. The hope is to create a franchise.
There is so much I can say about this report, but I will try and keep it short.
I believe that Don Bluth's animated feature of
The Secret of NIMH is a masterpiece that doesn't really need to be touched. I will admit that I wish there was a bit more storytelling for some of the scenes in the original, but there is only so much you can do with a $7 million budget and a brand new animation studio working on its first major motion picture. The fact that the film will be rebooted using a combination of live-action and computer animation, the same form in which the reboot of the
Alvin and the Chipmunks series took, doesn't pique my interests, seeing that NIMH is a traditional 2D animated film sticking to old methods of animation.
Chances are that Don Bluth wasn't contacted about this or asked for his input or consent, which happened with
The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue, and we all know how much of a mess THAT turned out to be. In my personal opinion, the only thing in the series that should be 'remade' would have to be
The Secret of NIMH 2 and not the first film. Completely trash the horrible story of the sequel to start from scratch and get Don Bluth to do it the way he would have done it. Unfortunately, we all know that isn't going to happen, but it's nice to dream.
In short, I am not too hyped about this reboot and will not be expecting much out of it.
The Secret of NIMH doesn't really need to be redone, seeing how much praise it has received and the small, yet devoted cult following it has.
What are your thoughts about this?