Mary Poppins: From Book to Movie to Movie again?

Mary Poppins, we all know and love this iconic character and all her amazing songs. Well I finally managed to sit my children down and watch it and to my surprise (with this day and age of high graphics and computer technology) it captivated them both the same way it did to me. So while pondering what I should talk about on a Tuesday. I decided to look up Mary Poppins and what do I find but a Disney release of a supposed new Poppins film in the works. (image: OC Mom)

Now if any of you are like me and highly skeptical of the validity of more supposed remakes, you can all sigh with me because it looks like it's true. But before we totally bash the idea and view it in the same light as the "Footloose" remake (shudder) first we should look at one very interesting point.

Mary Poppins was originally a book SERIES about Ms. Poppins and the Banks Family. This new movie is supposedly going to be based on the subsequent books, with the alteration of the time line. Instead of coming back a few years later she will be returning 20 years later. This is also not going to be released as a remake or a timeline. It will be it's own stand alone movie acknowledging the original movies existence and have a whole new set of songs and adventures with the children. I actually really like this idea because the whole Remake thing can go horribly wrong (as in Footloose and Annie). I think this will give the movie a chance to succeed without tarnishing the original.

One of the big things I like about what they are doing in creating the newest Mary Poppins is that they are working diligently alongside the Travers estate to make it as accurate as possible. They are also NOT moving it to modern era (if you read above, 20 years would fall around Depression-era London as per Vanity Fair), which brings me a major sigh of relief.

So here's hoping that the new movie will live up to the original. The casting is yet to be mentioned but a lot of sites are hoping for Emily Blunt or Anne Hathaway. I am actually hoping for a lesser known actress. I'm sure there would be some wonderful English stage actress who is young and willing to be Poppins... don't you?

The team of composers, writer and lyricists looks promising. If you want to read more then I would totally check out the brief Vanity Fair article... also once casting is done I'm sure we'll all hear about it anyway.

For now I may have to look up the book series for evening reading to the kids, because like the Nurse Matilda series (which Nanny McPhee was based off of) all kids need some magic in their lives.

Until next time,
Keep on, Geekin' on.
Angie