The Secret of NIMH Movie Remake May Tell The Origin Story, But NIMH Might Have Started At National Institutes Of Mental Health

The Secret of NIMH Movie Remake: MGM announced that it will remake Don Bluth's classic 1982 animated film "The Secret of NIMH." The original movie was based on the Robert C. O'Brien book "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," but may go back to lab rats at the National Institutes of Mental Health.

According to Screencrush, MGM said the new film version of The Secret of NIMH will return as a movie series. MGM plans to make The Secret of NIMN movies as a live-action/CGI hybrid.

MGM recently re-acquired the rights to the hit movie. There was a Secret of NIMH project being Paramount. MGM also nabbed Tomb Raider saga from Paramount recently.

Robert C. O'Brien' children's classic, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH was published in 1971 with illustrations by Zena Bernstein. The book follows the widowed field mouse Mrs. Frisby.

O'Brien wrote a sequel called Racso and the Rats of NIMH, which was published in 1986. A third book, R-T, Margaret, and the Rats of NIMH, was written by O'Brien's daughter, Jane Leslie Conly in 1990.

The original Secret of NIMH movie didn't adhere strictly to the source material.

The new Secret of NIMH films will reportedly be written by Michael Berg, who wrote "Ice Age 5." The Secrety of NIMH movies will be produced by Daniel Bobker and Ehren Kruger, from the Transformers and Lord of The Ring franchises. Kruger is also scheduled to write a mini-series based on Stephen King's book, The Talisman.

The upcoming adaptation won't be a straight adaptation of "Mrs. Frisby" either. It will reportedly be an origin tale of the rats in the book. The rats became super-intelligent because of experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health, also called NIMH.

The National Institute of Mental Health is the single largest scientific organization dedicated to the study of mental health. From the 1940s to 1960s, it is reported to have been where some of the worst atrocities against animals in the modern scientific era.