News

Disney’s Mary Poppins is 60 years old in 2024 – and it’s returning to UK cinemas in March to mark the occasion.

The joyous Disney favourite Mary Poppins is approaching a special birthday this year, with the movie – as the headline to this very piece suggests – now 60 years old.

Directed by Robert Stevenson, penned by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi – based on the work of P L Travers of course – the movie is best known for the mighty Julie Andrews in the lead role. That and, of course, Dick Van Dyke’s entirely convincing Londoner.

It’s a much-loved movie that technically hits 60 this August. However, no problem with getting the party started early: we now learn that the film is returning to over 100 UK cinemas on March 29th 2024.

The re-release isn’t coming direct from Disney, rather through Park Circus. We don’t have the exact cinema count, but over...

Even though Mary Poppins is a Disney classic, the original author of the book it was based on hated the Disney movie. P.L. Travers wrote the book about the fantastical nanny who saves the Banks family in 1934, and it was eventually adapted into a film by Disney in 1964. However, the adaption took far more work than many films as it was a struggle to get Travers to sign over the rights to the book.

Most authors would be thrilled to have a company like Disney adapt their work onto the big screen, even if it isn't identical to their book. But Travers didn't share the sentiment, frustrated by the child-friendly direction that the Sherman brothers, Richard and Robert, along with writer Don DaGradi, wanted to take the film. Her biggest complaint was that the film's version of Mary Poppins was too nice. Mixing animation with live action and adding musical...

Are you ready for a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious trip down memory lane? Because right now, in honor of Dick Van Dyke's 96th (!) birthday Dec. 13, we're looking back on a true classic: Mary Poppins. Produced by Walt Disney and directed by Robert Stevenson, the 1964 movie—also starring Julie Andrews—follows the story of a magical nanny who brings music and adventure to two neglected children in London. And, 50+ year old spoiler alert: Her efforts end up bringing them closer to their father. Disney's movie, based on the books by P.L Travers' and adapted for the big screen by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, naturally...

Sixty-four years after Disney's animated Lady and the Tramp was released, the same story is being told for new streaming service Disney+ — but now the movie features real rescue dogs and cocker spaniels. The classic tale comes from a 1945 Cosmopolitan magazine story titled "Happy Dan, the Cynical Dog," by Ward Greene, with the film adaptation coming 10 years later, written by Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Ralph Wright and Don DaGradi. With the story changing throughout the production process, one of the film's most recognizable scenes — in which the titular canine duo share spaghetti — was almost ...

Sixty-four years after Disney's animated Lady and the Tramp was released, the same story is being told for new streaming service Disney+ — but now the movie features real rescue dogs and cocker spaniels. The classic tale comes from a 1945 Cosmopolitan magazine story titled "Happy Dan, the Cynical Dog," by Ward Greene, with the film adaptation coming 10 years later, written by Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Ralph Wright and Don DaGradi. With the story changing throughout the production process, one of the film's most recognizable scenes — in which the titular canine duo share spaghetti — was almost ...

Screenwriter David Magee admits that if anyone other than Rob Marshall were directing “Mary Poppins Returns,” he “would’ve been hesitant. But Rob is a master of movie musicals,” so the scribe decided to dive in headfirst. Watch our exclusive video interview with Magee above.

See Off she goes! Emily Blunt flies up Best Actress Oscar rankings after first ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ screenings

This sequel reintroduces the title nanny (Emily Blunt), who returns to the Banks clan — the now grownup children Michael and Jane, along with Michael’s three kids — in their time of need. The big question on Magee’s mind was whether or not he could “find a story” that would do justice to the P.L. Travers‘s original books. Marshall and producer John DeLuca, both of whom receive story credits, sent him “some initial ideas of what they thought they might like to play with, images, opening scenes,...

The first trailer for Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns is now online. The film comes from Oscar-nominated director Rob Marshall (Chicago, Into the Woods) and is based on a script from Finding Neverland scribe David Magee. It’s a sequel to Robert Stevenson’s iconic 1964 film, Mary Poppins, which was written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi and based on the novel of the same name by P.L. Travers. Mary Poppins was also one of the last films that Walt Disney ever produced before his death in 1966.

A slew of classic Disney movies are hitting for the first time on Blu-Ray, including one double-pack release, and you’re going to want to make sure to pick these up. You haven’t paid attention to some of these titles for a while, and it’s about time you got the chance to catch them on Blu-Ray. The best part is that there’s a great mix of releases hitting. Bedknobs and Broomsticks is all but lost in the cultural consciousness, and it deserves a return. The Academy Award-winning movie from the year I was born is filled with a lot of fun and adventure, and like most Disney films, holds up well for a whole new generation.

The rest of the group covers a great spectrum, including two animated “big” titles, and a 10th Anniversary release. There’s a lot to expose your family to here, so check out all the info below,...

Saving Mr. Banks is the story of P.L Travers (Emma Thompson) and her famous struggle with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) for the rights to her classic children’s book Mary Poppins. For decades, Walt Disney tried to get the movie rights but with no success, but financial struggles finally pushed Pamela Travers to take a meeting with Disney, his screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), and composers Robert (B.J. Novak) and Richard Sherman (Jason Schwartzman). Unfortunately, Travers disagreed with Disney and his creative team on nearly every part of the film from the design of the Banks’ house to the lessons that Mary Poppins is teaching the children, and it seemed like all the years of work had been for naught. When Disney discovered that he and Travers share a common troubled past with their fathers, he found the missing piece to make Mary Poppins come to life and in a small way,...

Top 10 Mark Harrison 6 Jan 2014 - 06:29

As ever, some spectacular performances were overlooked in last year's rush of movie releases. Here's Mark's pick of the most underrated...

Here on Den Of Geek, It's become something of a tradition that when the end of the year rolls around, and the big awards bodies almost determinedly overlook genre cinema, and that we compile a list of the underrated and underappreciated performances by actors in the last cinematic year.

We've tried to pick out turns that either went unnoticed in most reviews, or simply should have gotten more praise. It's less about the great performances that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences are sure to overlook, than it is about giving praise where it's due.

It's unusual that this is either the most wide-open race in a while, or there aren't nearly enough people talking about who will definitely win...

Know that when you go see Saving Mr. Banks, you are not going to see a Tom Hanks film. You are going to see an Emma Thompson film. And you just might be awfully glad you did, my friends.

Truth be told, I’m not a huge Disney fan. I enjoy the Disney movies I watch, though I haven’t seen all (or even most) of them. I do, however, admire the story behind P.L. Travers and her treasured Mary Poppins, and it’s that affecting controversy – not the promise of The Mouse – that piqued my interest. In this case, Tom Hanks is simply a magnificent bonus. Furthermore, Colin Farrell is much more integral to the film than the trailers lead you to believe. For that, we can be grateful, for he added an element of charismatic grit to an otherwise luminous film.

Saving Mr. Banks is based on the...

Saving Mr. Banks is "inspired" by the making of Walt Disney's effervescent classic musical Mary Poppins.  Emma Thompson artfully plays the caustic creator of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, who flies out to Los Angeles to oversee the cinematic adaptation of her work.  Walt Disney (Tom Hanks in a mustache) has started work on the film without her full approval. Along with the songwriting Sherman Brothers (Jason Schwartzman and The Office's B.J. Novak) and storyboard artist Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), Disney hopes to convince Travers to sign over the film rights.

As we see Travers spout acerbic wit in later middle age, scenes from the Australian childhood of the author are depicted. Colin Farrell and Ruth Wilson (Luther, The Lone Ranger) play her troubled parents. Bank employee Travers Goff (Farrell) encourages the imagination of young daughter Ginty (Annie Rose Buckley as the young P.L. Travers, nee Helen Goff) while he...

Shooting one quaint room with only four inhabitants doesn’t exactly scream “cinematic,” at least not in the conventional sense of the word. For a considerable portion of Saving Mr. Banks, we’re watching creative sessions involving P.L. Travers (Emma Thomspon), screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), and songwriters Richard (Jason Schwartzman) and Bob Sherman (B.J. Novak) attempting to adapt Mary Poppins. Generally absent from those scenes is Tom Hanks, an actor with no shortage of charisma. Not having Hanks’s Walt Disney participating is fine though as the others happily match his charm. Director John Lee Hancock (The Blindside) cast these roles based on the energy needs of that room. Discussing those scenes with Hancock, it’s apparent how much those moments standout for him as well: “That room was a rehearsal room. We put a lot of care and design into it. We had, like, 20-something pages of the script in there. For...

Sugartime: Hancock Syrupy Recount Gets the Disney Dress Up

There’s a fascinating story lurking somewhere in John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks, but it’s relegated to the shadows, perhaps evident only in fleeting moments of Emma Thompson’s attention worthy performance of Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers, one of those delightfully bitter caustic types that people shudder to socialize with yet love enjoying on cinema screens. Not unlike the adolescent triteness with which racial issues are depicted in his 2009 film The Blind Side (showered with such an overabundance of awards and praise that its reception would make a great parody years from now), Hancock successfully Disneyfies Travers,’ a feat that surely would have her rolling in her grave. The very conflict that buoys Hancock’s film about the creative struggle between Walt Disney and Travers to bring Poppins to the silver screen can only reiterate its own agenda,...

In Disney’s holiday release, Saving Mr. Banks, moviegoers will learn how the beloved 1964 classic Mary Poppins almost didn’t make it to the cinema and into our hearts. The extraordinary story, based on real life events, tells us how it took ‘Uncle Walt’ twenty years to persuade British author, P.L. Travers to bring the magical nanny from the page to life on the big screen.

Excellent casting sees double Oscar winner Tom Hanks masterfully morph into the studio icon opposite two-time Academy winner, Emma Thompson, as the awfully complicated writer. Directed by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side), Saving Mr. Banks stars Colin Farrell (In Bruges) as her doting father, Travers; Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore) and Bj Novak (The Office) as the legendary songwriting duo the Sherman Brothers ; Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) as screenwriter Don DaGradi; and Paul Giamatti (Sideways) as Ralph, the driver who befriends Travers ...

Click to...

In "Saving Mr. Banks," B.J. Novak (Ryan on "The Office") plays one half of the famous song-writing duo, the Sherman Brothers, who penned the memorably catchy tunes including "Supercalifragilistic" in "Mary Poppins" as well as scores of other Disney musicals, like "The Jungle Book."

Novak plays Robert B. Sherman, while Jason Schwartzman plays the late Richard M. Sherman. They both bear the brunt of the constant negativity from P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), who hated the idea of her books being turned into a silly musical.

Novak sat down with Moviefone to discuss how different the real brothers were, how Thompson apologized after every take for being so "horrid" to them both and how the surviving Sherman influenced his upcoming book of short stories.

Moviefone: I didn't know that you could sing!

B.J. Novak: I didn't know I could sing either. I was the lead in my 7th grade production of "Oklahoma!

Saving Mr. Banks is a tale of two halves. The first half involves a rather standard setup with more flashbacks than any film need utilize. We're introduced to the ever lovable and determined Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) and the persnickety P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), author of "Mary Poppins", a book Disney had promised his daughters he'd make into a movie and has spent the better part of 20 years trying to convince Travers to sell him the rights. However, as much as I grew tired of the looks back on the early life of Travers as the story builds, the second half puts all of those flashbacks into perspective, resulting in a wonderful third act where Thompson shines, giving the film an emotional weight that's as welcomed as much as it is cliched. Hollywood may revel in making movies about making movies, but it's hard to fault them as working with...

Looks like Disney is getting to end 2013 on their own terms, a privilege rarely granted to your average person, but certainly less rare for multinational mass media conglomerates. It’s been a year where having the last word might be more important for the company than most, as the House of Mouse has taken a fair bit of battering in the last twelve months. Lucky for them, that house is home to cleanup extraordinaire Mary Poppins, and her roundabout return vehicle, Saving Mr. Banks, seems perfectly designed to ensure Disney goes into 2014 with as spotless a reputation as possible.

January saw the premiere of Escape from Tomorrow, a surrealist horror film shot guerrilla-style in Disneyland, leading to plenty of industry handwringing over whether Disney would take legal action. Even though its response was measured -wisely choosing to ignore the film, so as to avoid making a Matterhorn out of a...

I love, love, love Emma Thompson . both as an actress and as a person! And you will fall in love with her performance in the upcoming .Saving Mr. Banks. where the actress plays P.L. Travers, the real-life author of .Mary Poppins,. the book! Thompson has many delicious repartees with Tom Hanks who plays Mr. Walt Disney Himself, as well as the trio of Bradley Whitford (co-writer Don DaGradi), Jason Schwartzman (Richard M. Sherman), and B.J. Novak (Robert B. Sherman).

From director John Lee Hancock (.The Blind Side.), .Saving Mr. Banks. is one of the best films of 2013! The film opens on Dec. 20th! Go watch it!

In this interview with the legendary Thompson, we talked about:

*** How did he get attracted to making the movie?

*** Her character, Pamela, oh I.m sorry, Mrs. Travers

*** I told her that this is her movie . but she didn.t want to accept that . I Love Her!

Emma Thompson mesmerizes in .Saving Mr. Banks,. but helping her are the fantastic trio of Bradley Whitford (Don DaGradi, co-writer of .Mary Poppins.), Jason Schwartzman (Richard M. Sherman), and B.J. Novak (Robert B. Sherman). Thompson stars as P.L. Travers, the nightmare of an author who won.t let her .Mary Poppins. go! And she gave the Sherman brothers, composers and lyricists of the 1964 musical, and co-writer Don DaGradi, a hard time! And that.s an understatement!

I sat down with the fantastic trio to talk about .Saving Mr. Banks..

*** How they got interested in making the movie?

*** How Schwartzman.s brother gave him the inside scoop on .Saving Mr. Banks.

*** How art is cathartic . a theme of the movie!

*** Richard Sherman visited the set . and he was experiencing nightmares just by watching Emma Thompson!

Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson give this making-of Mary Poppins confection a supercalifragilistic flavour, but it sours with its bland biographical flashbacks

• Read more about Saving Mr Banks

• More from the Reel history archive

Director: John Lee Hancock

Entertainment grade: B

History grade: B

Pl Travers wrote the first Mary Poppins book in 1934. Soon afterwards, Walt Disney sought the film rights – though it would take him until 1964 to make the movie.

Literary life

The film's main narrative is set in 1961. Pamela Travers (Emma Thompson) is coaxed into meeting Walt Disney by her literary agent. This isn't easy, for Travers is a misanthrope, highly strung and fiercely protective of her books. Admittedly, most writers are a bit like that, but Travers is at the extreme end of the spectrum. Biographies of her paint a very similar picture. Under substantial pressure, she eventually flies to Los Angeles to meet the person she...

Director: John Lee Hancock; Screenwriters: Kelly Marcel, Sue Smith; Starring: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Ruth Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Paul Giamatti; Running time: 125 mins; Certificate: PG

"Mary Poppins is the very enemy of sentiment and whimsy, she doesn't sugarcoat the darkness," bellows Pl Travers (Emma Thompson) to Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) during a script meeting as the House of Mouse tries to put together an all-singing, all-penguin-dancing version of the author's beloved novel.

Creative tension between Hollywood and writers is nothing new - Stephen King famously despised Stanley Kubrick's The Shining adaptation, while Alan Moore became so frustrated with movies based on his work he requested his name be removed from the credits entirely.

Saving Mr Banks peels back the curtain to go behind the scenes on the making of Disney's 1964 classic Mary Poppins. For Walt Disney, making a film out of this book represents a two-decade quest...

"Trophy Wife" is one of the best new comedies this fall, starring "West Wing" alum Bradley Whitford alongside three fun, fierce women as his wives (two ex, one current) -- Marcia Gay Harden, Michaela Watkins and Malin Akerman, respectively.

"How great are those women?" Whitford marvels to Zap2it in a recent interview. "I'm glad it's going on because the writers are great, it's a great group, it's a lot of fun."

The show recently got a full-season order from ABC, which has us wondering if perhaps there will come a day when Kate (Akerman) wants a baby of her own but Pete (Whitford) feels like maybe he's past that point in his life. Whitford says he's suggested a plot along those lines.

"I had suggested -- but it's the kind of thing that on a network comedy they get very nervous about -- I had suggested that the last...

Director John Lee Hancock won the hearts of much of North America with 2009′s The Blind Side. Whether the movie was enjoyable or not, there’s no denying the impact it had that year. Come December there’s a chance Hancock’s newest film, Saving Mr. Banks, will strike the same chord with audiences. It’s certainly deserving of that same success. Author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the woman behind Mary Poppins, has been turning down Walt Disney’s (Tom Hanks) advances for over twenty years. It’s the book rights he’s interested in, but she’s afraid he’ll turn it into another one of his goofy animated movies instead of appreciating the personal story Travers wrote it as. After discovering that she’s running out of money, Travers begins to change her tune. From that point on, we see plenty of back and forth between her and Walt, screenwriter...

For 20 years, Walt Disney avidly pursued the film rights to global bestseller "Mary Poppins," and for 20 years, author P.L. Travers rebuffed the mogul's tenacious advances, fearing the ways he might maul her beloved children's book and character. But in 1961, faced with money troubles and dwindling sales, Travers finally relented, reluctantly traveling to La and giving Walt and his artistic troika -- screenwriter Don DaGradi (played in the film by Bradley Whitford) and the songwriting Sherman brothers (Bj Novak and Jason Schwartzman) -- two weeks to convince her to agree to an adaptation.  This is the tale that "Saving Mr. Banks," which had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival and its North American premiere at AFI Fest, sets out to tell, interspersed with flashbacks to Travers' own difficult, unexpected childhood in the Australian Outback living with a doting but alcoholic father (Colin Farrell) and unhappy mother (Ruth Wilson...

When Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks opens in theaters in December, audiences will delight in a movie that gives them not only a rare glimpse of the behind-the-scenes tug-of-war that ultimately brought “Mary Poppins” to the screen but also a glimpse of the creative geniuses it took to envision the classic film – everyone from a cantankerous, difficult author to an ever-optimistic, visionary entrepreneur.

John Lee Hancock’s film will have it’s North American Premiere at the Opening Night Gala of the 2013 AFI Fest on Thursday, November 7.

Actors Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson discuss the backstory of what would ultimately set the wheels of the beloved film in motion.

Prior to it’s screening at the AFI Fest 2013, the Oscar-winning actress will be honored with a handprint-footprint ceremony at the Tcl Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

In preparation to take on the persona of P.L. Travers, Thompson listened to tapes of...

AFI Fest 2013 presented by Audi, a program of the American Film Institute, today announced the remaining sections and films that will screen in the festival’s World Cinema, American Independents, Breakthrough, Midnight, Cinema’s Legacy and Presentations programs. AFI Fest, which redefines Hollywood today as a place where icons and emerging artists bring audiences together to experience global cinema in the movie capital of the world, will take place November 7 through 14 at the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre, the Chinese 6 Theatres, the Egyptian Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

World Cinema showcases the most anticipated and prize-winning international films of the year, the American Independents section features work by U.S. filmmakers, Breakthrough highlights work discovered only through the blind submission process, Midnight’s selections tend toward the macabre and Cinema’s Legacy highlights restorations and classic films.

This year’s program includes the return of several filmmakers to AFI Fest...

Tom Hanks is entertaining as Walt Disney in this otherwise bland and sentimental effort, the festival's closing gala film

An enormous spoonful of sugar and the tiniest bit of medicine: it all goes down, just about. This is a warmly, in fact outrageously sentimental and self-congratulatory film from Disney about the master himself: the story of how in 1961 the wily genius Walt Disney – likably played by Tom Hanks – persuaded the grumpy British dame Pl Travers to come to Los Angeles and begin talks to sign away the screen rights to her legendary creation, Mary Poppins. It was a project Walt had been working on for 20 years. The director is John Lee Hancock, who made the intensely patriotic football picture The Blind Side.

Gimlet of eye, pursed of lip, uptight of demeanour, Travers is terribly suspicious of Hollywood razzmatazz; she is played by Emma Thompson, a double Oscar-winner for writing and...

Over at Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeff Wells has posted a quote from someone he refers to as a "filmmaker friend" discussing Jon Lee Hancock's upcoming film, Saving Mr. Banks starring Tom Hanks as Walt Diseny and Emma Thompson as "Mary Poppins" author P.L. Travers. The film follows Disney's attempts to buy the rights to "Poppins" over the course of 25 years. Wells' "friend" says, "I'm told by Academy members who've seen Saving Mr. Banks that it's going to remake the Oscar race with a deliberately timed late finish." I'm not exactly what the "late finish" part of that statement means considering the film will open the 2013 AFI Festival at the beginning of November, but I guess it's in reference to its December 13 release date, but with the onslaught of films waiting until the end of December, I have to assume by that time most of them will have been seen by the...

Two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks (Philadelphia, Forrest Gump) will essay the role of the legendary Disney (the first time the entrepreneur has ever been depicted in a dramatic film) alongside fellow double Oscar-winner Emma Thompson (Howard’s End, Sense and Sensibility) in the role of the prickly novelist. Saving Mr. Banks accounts Walt Disney’s twenty-year pursuit of the film rights to P.L. Travers’ popular novel 'Mary Poppins' and the testy partnership the upbeat filmmaker develops with the uptight author during the project’s pre-production in 1961. Before actually signing away the book’s rights, Travers’ demands for contractual script and character control circumvent not only Disney’s vision for the film adaptation, but also those of the creative team of screenwriter Don DaGradi...

Break out the movie planner calendar fellow Movie Geeks. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures has sent us their schedule, along with the official names, of when their films will be hitting cinemas. Among the familiar faces are Captain America, Thor and Iron Man who all came together to save the world in the Summer of 2012 in Marvel’s The Avengers. In August, Disney Studios announced a release date for Marvel Studios. sequel to the biggest Super Hero blockbuster and third highest grossing film of all time. Joss Whedon returns to write and direct the Untitled Marvel.S Avengers Sequel set for release May 1, 2015.

Now for the new stuff. Phineas And Ferb moves to a 2014 debut from it’s previously announced date of July 28, 2013. While many of these titles and dates you see below were announced at Comic-Con in San Diego over the summer, you’ll find some that are new.

Rachel Griffiths and Kathy Baker have rounded out the cast of the John Lee Hancock-directed Disney feature "Saving Mr. Banks" which began production this week says The Herald Online.

Kelly Marcel's script deals with the 14 year courtship by Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) to persuade Australian author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) to sell him the film rights to her book "Mary Poppins".

Travers' book was highly personal, and reflected hardships in her own life and her relationship with her father (Colin Farrell) who died when she was seven and living in rural Queensland. Disney finally persuaded her to let him make the film, though she was prickly all the way to the end.

Griffiths will play Travers' aunt, while Baker plays one of Disney’s trusted studio associates. Other previously announced actors include Ruth Wilson as Travers' mother, Annie Buckley as an 11-year-old Travers in flashbacks, Bradley Whitford as screenwriter Don DaGradi,...

Disney and Travers

Disney began production today on Saving Mr. Banks the account of Walt Disney.s twenty-year pursuit of the film rights to P.L. Travers. popular novel, Mary Poppins, and the testy partnership the upbeat filmmaker develops with the uptight author during the project.s pre-production in 1961.

Saving Mr. Banks will film entirely in the Los Angeles area, with key locations to include Disneyland in Anaheim and the Disney Studios in Burbank. Filming will conclude around Thanksgiving, 2012, with no specific 2013 release date yet set. I’d suspect an end-of-the-year bow for an awards season push. But who will this type of subject matter appeal to exactly? Unless your a fan of Mary Poppins and Walt Disney, it seems boring. They better jazz it up somehow. It reads like an old-peoples’ movie. An HBO showing may have been a better venue for Saving Mr. Banks. On the other hand it could be huge,...

Disney began production today on “Saving Mr. Banks,” the account of Walt Disney’s twenty-year pursuit of the film rights to P.L. Travers’ popular novel, Mary Poppins, and the testy partnership the upbeat filmmaker develops with the uptight author during the project’s pre-production in 1961.

Two-time Academy Award®-winner Tom Hanks (“Philadelphia,” “Forrest Gump”) will essay the role of the legendary Disney (the first time the entrepreneur has ever been depicted in a dramatic film) alongside fellow double Oscar®-winner Emma Thompson (“Howard’s End,” “Sense and Sensibility”) in the role of the prickly novelist. Before actually signing away the book’s rights, Travers’ demands for contractual script and character control circumvent not only Disney’s vision for the film adaptation, but also those of the creative team of screenwriter Don DaGradi and sibling composers Richard and Robert Sherman, whose original score and song (Chim-Chim-Cher-ee) would go on to win...

John Lee Hancock's Saving Mr. Banks starring Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson starts production in Los Angeles. Disney has announced that's its started production today on Saving Mr. Banks, the account of Walt Disney’s twenty-year pursuit of the film rights to P.L. Travers’ popular novel, Mary Poppins, and the testy partnership the upbeat filmmaker develops with the uptight author during the project’s pre-production in 1961. Tom Hanks will play Disney (first time ever been depicted in a dramatic film) while Emma Thompson is set to play the prickly novelist. Before actually signing away the book’s rights, Travers’ demands for contractual script and character control circumvent not only Disney’s vision for the film adaptation, but also those of the creative team of screenwriter Don DaGradi and sibling composers Richard and Robert Sherman, whose original score and song (Chim-Chim-Cher-ee) would go on to win Oscars®at the 1965 ceremonies...

John Lee Hancock's Saving Mr. Banks starring Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson starts production in Los Angeles. Disney has announced that's its started production today on Saving Mr. Banks, the account of Walt Disney’s twenty-year pursuit of the film rights to P.L. Travers’ popular novel, Mary Poppins, and the testy partnership the upbeat filmmaker develops with the uptight author during the project’s pre-production in 1961. Tom Hanks will play Disney (first time ever been depicted in a dramatic film) while Emma Thompson is set to play the prickly novelist. Before actually signing away the book’s rights, Travers’ demands for contractual script and character control circumvent not only Disney’s vision for the film adaptation, but also those of the creative team of screenwriter Don DaGradi and sibling composers Richard and Robert Sherman, whose original score and song (Chim-Chim-Cher-ee) would go on to win Oscars®at the 1965 ceremonies...

Sex and Sunsets

Ryan Kwanten ("True Blood") will top line Jeremiah Chechik’s Canadian indie flick "Sex and Sunsets" for Serendipity Point Films. Shooting kicks off in August in Banff and Los Angeles.

Based on the novel by Tim Sandlin, Kwanten plays a failed writer-cum-dishwasher made famous for his many flaws and shortcomings in a blog. Chechik will direct from a script by Megan Martin. [Source: THR]

Two Faces of January

Kirsten Dunst has signed on to play the wife of Viggo Mortensen's character in Hossein Amini's psychological thriller "Two Faces Of January" for Studiocanal and Working Title. Shooting kicks off in October in Greece and Turkey.

An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel, Mortensen plays a con artist who kills a Greek policeman, possibly by accident, which sends him on the run with wife (Dunst) and an American tutor (Oscar Isaac) in tow. [Source: Empire]

The Wolverine

Jessica Biel has scored...

Although production is already underway in Beijing – with some concept footage revealed – Keanu Reeves‘ directorial debut just got an added dose of awesome. While he won’t have a major role, Reeves has added Indonesian actor Iko Uwais, who recently destroyed many bones in The Raid, to a third act scene in his Man of Tai Chi. [Variety]

The actor will fight our main character, a young martial artist played by Tiger Chen, as he also teams with the antagonist of the film, Reeves himself. Karen Mok also rounds out the main cast as our femme fatale in the film. It’s only a matter of time before the talent behind The Raid broke out in a major way and Uwais delivered some supremely convincing fightwork, so it’s with great excitement I await his next action showcase.

In other casting news, this time for a very different film, Variety reports...

Lady and the Tramp

Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske

Written by Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Ralph Wright, Don DaGradi

Starring Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, Verna Felton

Whether you’re a Disney nut like me, a film buff, an animation buff, or just interested in 20th-century Americana, you’d do well to read Neal Gabler’s biography of the late Walt Disney, called Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. Though it’s an unauthorized work, Gabler had a high amount of access to the official Disney archives, so the book is well-sourced, detailed, and a compelling read. Gabler digs deep into Disney’s childhood, the tough times he had as an animator and businessman before creating Mickey Mouse, one of the truly seminal icons of American history, as well as the difficulties he faced and sometimes created once he became a household name. And yet, despite...

Mary Poppins

Directed by Robert Stevenson

Written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi

Starring Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson

I think it’s a bit dangerous to call movies classics; that title can be a heavy crown for any film to wear, whether it’s your favorite or one you’ve never heard of before. Sometimes, we consider movies classics because our parents or our siblings or our friends loved them first, and we just followed along with them. Sometimes, we consider movies classics as soon as we walk out of the theater, blown away at what we’ve just seen. And sometimes we’re told that movies are classics, not because we’ve seen them, but because film buffs and critics have deemed it that way. No matter what makes a movie a classic, I’m unable to separate that movie from its status when I watch it,...

The Love Bug

Directed by Robert Stevenson

Written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, based on the book Car, Boy, Girl by Gordon Buford

1968, USA, imdb

As I mentioned during the Mousterpiece Cinema podcast about The Love Bug, when I was a very young boy – about 3 or 4, my parents would drive to Ndg from the Laurentians to visit my grandparents. Once there, my Bompa would take me down to his basement garage, wave his hands, intone dramatically “Abracadabra” and the garage doors would open. Then he would wave his hands and proclaim “Abracadabra” to close them back up. I thought he was quite a magician… and he was! At least in the Arthur C. Clarke sense that, “Any sufficiently advanced technology,” in this case an automatic garage-door opener in 1970, “is indistinguishable from magic.”

This is the key to the Herbie films. Children see a sentient car and believe it to...

The Love Bug

Directed by Robert Stevenson

Written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi

Starring Dean Jones, David Tomlinson, Michele Lee, Buddy Hackett

Live-action films at Walt Disney Pictures have always occupied an interesting place, not only within cinema as a whole, but within the company. Even during the dark days of the 1960s and 1970s—basically the period from when Walt Disney passed away in 1966 to when Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg joined the company in 1984—live-action was a moneymaker without being anywhere near as iconic as the animation output. Granted, the studio often fell back on re-releasing its older animated films, but they treated animation as something to be respected, while live-action was just there to get kids in the theater.

In some ways, I wonder if that’s why Walt Disney Pictures was able to have such a tight-knit system comprised of directors, writers, composers, and so on.

Chicago – When it was announced that Disney would be releasing a new special edition of “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” the little kid in me woke up and started pounding on my memory banks. I have such vivid memories of watching the film as a child, mouth agape, eyes wide, and falling in love with the blend of animation and live-action that looked so revolutionary to this future critic’s young mind. Pick up the DVD and inspire a child you know.

DVD Rating: 3.5/5.0 “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” is a film so ingrained in the memory of my childhood that I can’t really approach it critically. It’s difficult to separate the personal meaning the film has for me on rainy Sundays around the Vcr with my mother and sister and look at it without bias. But I bet I’m not alone. And if you remember “Bedknobs” with the same fondness,...

We have nine clips in from Buena Vista Home Entertainment's "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" which comes to DVD for the very first time on . This was one of my favorite family films during my youth which I must have visited easily over a dozen times. The charming cast stars Angela Lansbury, David Tomlinson, Roddy McDowall, Sam Jaffem John Ericson, Bruce Forsyth and Cindy O'Callaghan. Robert Stevenston directs from the writing by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi based on the book "Bed-Knob and Broomstick."...