It’s time to work a little magic. Deadline has revealed a bombshell that will fill many of us with nostalgia, those of us who grew up with Disney’s classic close to our hearts: there is a new adaptation of ‘Mary Poppins’ on the way. Not at all like the Disney film from the sixties or its sequel, to be clear: this time it’s the authentic and original one, the one that came from the the P. L. Travers novels.
The format for this return will be a series, and it is the one that fits best considering that the saga comprises a total of eight books around the most famous British witch of all time. This could mean a radical shift from the feature films we are used to, with a Poppins that is more mysterious, and at times even, one might say, terrifying. That said, it could take the shape of a limited series or a longer one: that is still to be determined.
Disney is Interested
The principal person in charge of this adaptation is Tom Winchester for Pure Fiction Television, who previously oversaw the production of the brilliant ‘Shogun’. The rights to the novels will remain tied to Travers’s heirs, though not for long either: the character and its first associated book will enter the public domain in 2030, not far from the present moment.
According to outlets, Disney is in early talks to engage with the project, although it is still too soon to know for certain whether they will acquire the rights to broadcast. For now, the project remains in a very early stage of development, so nothing is set in stone by either side.
A Long Journey
Mary Poppins’s quest to achieve an adaptation faithful to the books has been long and arduous. Travers ceded in the sixties to a first film by Walt Disney, ‘Mary Poppins’, but the result was very unsatisfactory for her. During the following years of her life she held back the rights and openly criticized the feature film, and she refused entirely the possibility of a sequel, which we would not see until 2018 with ‘Mary Poppins Returns’.
For the curious, ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ tells the dynamic between the author and Disney, albeit with many, many liberties.
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