Idris Elba is in negotiations to join Andy Serkis and Thomas Brodie-Sangster in Fox’s fantasy-action movie “Mouse Guard” with “Maze Runner’s” Wes Ball directing.
Fox is planning a live-action movie through performance capture technology employed in the “Planet of the Apes” films, in which Serkis starred as the ape leader Caesar. David Peterson created, wrote, and illustrated the “Mouse Guard” series, which launched in 2006 and is set in a medieval times world without humans. The stories center on a brotherhood of mice sworn to serve their fellow mice.
Fox started development on the movie, based on the “Mouse Guard” graphic novel series, in 2016. Matt Reeves, director of “War for the Planet of the Apes,” is producing “Mouse Guard” through his 6th and Idaho production company along with Ross Richie and Stephen Christy, both of Boom! Studios — the publisher of “Mouse Guard.” Joe Hartwick Jr. is also producing.
If the deal goes through, Elba will portray Celanawe, a hermit figure who has long live outside mouse dwellings. Serkis will portray the villainous blacksmith Midnight and Brodie-Sangster will play Lieam, one of the Mouse Guard’s youngest members. Production is expected to begin in the late spring.
Variety reported earlier this month that Elba was Warner Bros’. choice to replace Will Smith as Deadshot in the “Suicide Squad” sequel. he’s starring in the upcoming Netflix series “Turn Up Charlie” and will appear on the big screen for “The Fast and the Furious” spinoff “Hobbs and Shaw” alongside Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, as well as Universal’s “Cats” adaptation. He is repped by WME, The Artists Partnership and Ziffren Brittenham.
News of the deal came two days after 20th Century Fox became part of the Walt Disney Co.