Screenshot: Wes Ball Mouse Guard demo

One of the first casualties of the Fox-Disney studio merger has been revealed. And it is…absolutely gorgeous. [Update: The video has been pulled, but there are additional art materials below.]

Mouse Guard, the movie adaptation of the Eisner-winning comic series by David Petersen has been cancelled, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The cancellation was confirmed yesterday by director Wes Ball in a tweet, with a short walk-through video of many pre-production pieces such as scale models and concept art.

Yes sadly, its true. Our #mouseguard movie is dead. Seems it’s too big a risk. It’s a damn shame really. We had something special. To my hella talented cast/crew: I’m sorry I couldn’t push this one through. The past year with you all has been a blast. May the Guard prevail! pic.twitter.com/MGRq54uI6O — Wes Ball (@wesball) June 26, 2019

Mouse Guard is an eight book epic fantasy series that re-imagines the high drama of fantasy kingdoms at the level of mice living in the forest. Set in 1152, the first book follows three Guardsmice—Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam—whose mission is to find a missing merchant. They end up discovering a traitor amongst their ranks and their story balloons from there.

The highly-anticipated movie, which had Idris Elba attached, halted filming back in April. Ball also released a Mouse Guard demo reel on YouTube (now pulled down), stressing that the visuals—already pretty impressive—were meant to represent the feel and visual potential of the movie.

Illustrator David Petersen also offers this walkthrough of the concept art for the movie:

Musician John Paesano also shared a bit of the soundtrack in progress:

[via Polygon]