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Nearly two years after first being set up at MGM, the long-awaited adaptation Rats of Nimh finally has a director. James Madigan, a visual effects specialist who has worked on Iron Man 2, The Da Vinci Code and HBO's Rome, just to name a few, has come aboard to direct Rats of Nimh. This adaptation will mark the feature film directorial debut for James Madigan, after spending the past 16 years working in various areas of visual effects. He recently transitioned to second unit director, and worked on the giant shark thriller Meg.

When MGM first picked up the rights to this adaptation in March 2015, we reported that the movie will be an origin story about an "imperiled mouse protagonist" who befriends a group of lab rats as they become "hyper-intelligent." The story will follow these rats as they escape a secret laboratory and become great minds in their civilization, as...

MGM has acquired the rights to Robert C. O'Brien's children's novel Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of Nimh for a live action/CGI animation hybrid adaptation. Michael Berg (Ice Age 5) has been hired to write the screenplay, which will focus on an origin story involving an "imperiled mouse protagonist" who befriends a group of lab rats as they become "hyper-intelligent." The story will follow these rats as they escape a secret laboratory and become great minds in their civilization, as they try to outwit the humans who have been chasing them.

The novel, which was first published in 1971 and won the Newberry Medal a year later, was adapted into the 1982 animated feature The Secret of Nimh, with a voice cast that included Derek Jacobi, Dom DeLuise, Shannen Doherty and Wil Wheaton. The animated adaptation spawned the 1998 sequel The Secret of Nimh 2: Timmy to the Rescue. MGM hopes to start...