Are You Ready For A New Mary Poppins Movie?

Disney has been rebooting and remaking a number of their classic movies as of late, from Alice in Wonderland, to Sleeping Beauty, to Cinderella. Now guess which Disney iconic will be returning to the big screen. We’ll give you a hint:

Winds in the east, mist coming in. Like somethin’ is brewin’ and bout to begin. Can’t put me finger on what lies in store, but I fear what’s to happen all happened before. 

That’s right! According to Entertainment Weekly, Disney is developing a sequel to 1964’s Mary Poppins with Rob Marshall of Into the Woods and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides set to direct. Marshall will be reuniting with producers John DeLuca and Marc Platt to further adapt P.L. Travers’ books, “focusing on the magical nanny’s continued adventures with the Banks family.” Keeping in the same continuity of the original film, this musical sequel will be set 20 years later. David Magee (Finding Neverland, Life of Pi) will write the screenplay while Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray) will compose entirely original songs.

Although the original Mary Poppins was a huge financial success, earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and is still considered a perennial classic, P.L. Travers wasn’t the biggest fan of Disney’s interpretation. The behind the scenes drama of the movie’s development was depicted in 2013’s Saving Mr. Banks, which starred Tom Hanks as Disney and Emma Thompson as Travers. Towards the end of the film, Travers rejects the idea of letting Disney make a second Mary Poppins movie. Over fifty years later, however, that sequel is happening whether Travers likes it or not.

The question is if Julie Andrews will be involved at all. Considering her age and that she’s no longer able to sing due to a botched vocal cord operation, Andrews likely won’t reprise her most beloved role. While it’s hard to imagine anyone else as Mary Poppins, perhaps Anne Hathaway could pull it off. This would be especially fitting considering Hathaway broke out into stardom with The Princess Diaries, which also starred Andrews as her grandmother. We can’t think of a better actress to hand the umbrella over to. Kristen Bell of Frozen would also be a worthy candidate. We’ll just have to see what the winds in the east bring us, though.