LOS ANGELES, March 26 — The Luther and Thor: Ragnarok actor is expected to join Andy Serkis and a star and director from the Maze Runner films in Mouse Guard, a live-action movie about a terrible plot to assault the Mouse Territories.

It looks like Elba is joining Mouse Guard, a new project from Maze Runner franchise director Wes Ball.

Ball is steering and helping produce the project, which has already attracted Maze Runner co-star Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and Planet of the Apes and the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit saga motion-capture whiz Serkis.

Written and illustrated by David Peterson, Mouse Guard takes place nearly a thousand years ago, in the 1100s, in the aftermath of a successful defensive action against the warring weasels.

However, when three members of the protective Mouse Guard are sent on a relatively routine mission to find a missing merchant, what appears to be death from natural causes (a snake) unravels to expose a plot to reconfigure the Mouse Territories around a selfish leader with a secret army.

First published in 2006, the initial storyline’s six issues were then collected as Mouse Guard: Fall 1152.

Three prestigious Eisner Awards followed for Peterson, as well as a six-issued Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, the one-off Spring 1153, six-part Black Axe, and Legends of the Guard anthologies, as well as various art books, figurines, and a well-received pen and paper role-playing game.

While Serkis and Brodie-Sangster were already associated with the project, Elba is the first linked to a specific character, that of Celanawe, a legendary Mouse Guard veteran now missing and presumed dead.

Elba and Serkis have both been part of the growing Marvel Cinematic Universe, Elba having played Asgard’s bridge guardian and blind seer Heimdall in Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and three Thor films, and Serkis the weapons dealer Ulysses Klaue in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Black Panther.

Elba played Shere Khan in Disney’s 2016 movie The Jungle Book while Serkis voiced Baloo and directed Netflix’s Warner Bros adaptation of the same story, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle.

Elba has also previously voiced characters in Finding Dory (the sea lion Fluke) and Zootopia (police chief Bogo). — AFP-Relaxnews