John Lee Hancock and Tom Hanks Up For Saving Mr. Banks

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John Lee Hancock Up For Saving Mr Banks
Mary Poppins: Origins?
Source: Deadline

There has been some chatter recently about Disney sniffing around the rights to Black List script Saving Mr Banks, which follows the intriguing story behind the making of Mary Poppins. Now the studio might just have a director close to bringing it to life, with The Blind Side’s John Lee Hancock in early talks.

Written by Kelly Marcel, Banks follows Walt Disney’s real-life efforts to persuade Australian author PL Travers to sell him the rights to adapt her iconic magic nanny character. It was no small campaign; Walt spent 14 years wearing Travers down on the idea. The result was the 1964 film, which starred Julie Andrews as Poppins, Dick Van Dyke as Bert and David Tomlinson as Mr Banks. It went on to score 13 Oscar nominations and four wins.

Travers, however, wasn’t exactly all that thrilled with either the filmmaking process or the final result – her story was a highly personal one, tied in with the death of her own father when she was seven. And despite the critical and box office success of the movie, she hated the animated portions enough that she refused Disney the rights to any of her other works. We’re still wondering whether it was Van Dyke’s cock-er-nee accent that tipped her over the edge.

Hancock has been throwing himself into various developing projects of late. He’s already working on crime drama Highwaymen and John Grisham adaptation The Partner, but if he does sign on Banks, it’ll be a very different prospect. According to Deadline, Disney is keen on getting this one shooting this year and the likes of Tom Hanks and Meryl “If I’m playing a real person you might as well hand me an Oscar nomination now†Streep are already being bandied about, albeit strictly in rumour territory for now.

Empire Online

Tom Hanks Now Getting Serious For ‘Saving Mr. Banks’

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline told you back in February that Tom Hanks was in the mix to play Walt Disney in the John Lee Hancock directed and Kelly Marcel-scripted saga of how Walt Disney waged a 14-year courtship to persuade Australian author P.L. Travers to sell him rights to make a film out of Mary Poppins. Now, things are heating up with Hanks to potentially star with Emma Thompson (Meryl Streep was also being courted) for Disney, which in February made a deal to acquire the Black List script, which is set up with producer Alison Owen of Ruby Films. Disney seems a natural place for the script, considering the studio owns many rights from making the 1964 classic film that starred Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke and David Tomlinson, the latter of whom played Mr. Banks in the film.

The heart of this script comes from how close Travers felt to her story of a nanny with magical powers. Mary Poppins was highly personal, and reflected hardships in her own life and her relationship with her father, who died when she was 7. Disney finally persuaded her to let him make the film, but she was prickly all the way to the end. While Mary Poppins was lauded immediately, she hated the animated sequences in the film so much that she refused to sell any of her other works to Disney.

Deadline