New Mary Poppins Movie Gets Greenlit By Disney

Disney has decided to revive one of their most beloved and iconic characters with a movie fifty-one years after the first film opened in theaters. Rob Marshall (Into the Woods, Chicago) is on board to direct the new live-action Mary Poppins musical from a script written by David Magee (Life of Pi), which takes place 20 years after the original film, in Depression-era London.

While the 1964 film starring Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, and David Tomlinson was based on P.L. Travers' first of eight Mary Poppins books, the new film will draw inspiration from the rest of the series, and further develop the adventures shared between the Banks family and the magical nanny.

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the musical duo behind Hairspray and Smash are set to compose the original songs and score for the new movie, which is "decidedly not being developed as a sequel", though if it is set 20 years after the events of the first film, it's a sequel.

Both Disney and Marshall are working with the Travers estate and Richard Sherman, who co-composed the original film's iconic songs together with his late brother Robert.

With Disney mining all of their past animated hits and turning them into live-action films, does it come as a total surprise that Mary Poppins would be next? The main question now is who has the courage to step in and try to fill the gigantic shoes left by Julie Andrews?

Source - EW