‘Mary Poppins Returns’ set for 2018 with Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Disney’s live-action sequel to the 1964 classic Mary Poppins is indeed in the works and will arrive in theaters Christmas Day 2018. Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda have been tapped as the leads with the official title being: Mary Poppins Returns.
Disney announced the title and date which had previously been earmarked as an “Untitled Disney Live Action #2.
Rob Marshall (Into the Woods) is directing Mary Poppins Returns from an adapted script by David Magee, as well as producing alongside Marc Platt and John DeLuca. Marc Shaiman is composing an all-new score; he and Scott Wittman are collaborating in writing the original songs.
“Mary Poppins Retuns”
“I am truly humbled and honored to be asked by Disney to bring P.L. Travers’ further adventures to the screen,” Marshall said in a statement. “The iconic original film means so much to me personally, and I look forward to creating an original movie musical that can bring Mary Poppins, and her message that childlike wonder can be found in even the most challenging of times, to a whole new generation.”
Mary Poppins was first introduced to the world in P.L. Travers’ 1934 book, which Disney adapted into the 1964 movie starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.
Travers wrote seven additional books about Mary Poppins that were published between 1935 and 1988.
The new film will be set in Depression-era London, where a now grown-up Jane and Michael Banks, along with Michael’s three children, are visited by their former nanny following a tragedy in the family that leaves them numb and joyless.
Miranda will play the role of Jack the lamplighter, a new character.
He is fast becoming part of the studio fold, having composed the music for Disney’s upcoming animated film Moana and worked on the music for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
From the countless holiday musical adaptations, like this one at the Straz Center in Tampa, Mary Poppins will now arrive in a new film
