The return of Mary Poppins

Walt Disney’s cinematic classic Mary Poppins, which brought forth a shift in the careers of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke by smashing multiple records and eventually adding new a word in the dictionary, is making a comeback after almost 50 years with Mary Poppins Returns. Helmed by Into the Woods famed director Rob Marshall, this time the magical nanny will be played by Emily Blunt while bigshots like Meryl Streep, Lin Manuel Miranda and Ben Winshaw cast in other roles. Entertainment Weekly revealed the cover for its latest issue featuring Emily Blunt as the new nanny along with a batch of new images and interesting details about the story. Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns, which is slated to be in theaters in Christmas 2018, is set in the Depression-era London where a now-grown Jane and Michael Banks along with Michael’s three children are visited by the enigmatic Mary Poppins, following a personal loss. Through her unique magical skills and with the aid of her friend Jack, she helps the family rediscover the joy and wonder that was missing from their lives. The original one, however, was set in 1910 and was loosely based on the first two volumes of P L Travers’ eight-book series, which told the story of how Mary Poppins united an absent father and his two playful children through her singular, enigmatic magic. But there were six more Travers books, bursting with more characters and stories, waiting to be adapted on screen. Rob Marshall’s revival picks up 25 years after the events of the first film, fast-forwarding to London’s mid-1930s economic slump, the actual time period of Travers’ books. Released on August 27, 1964, Mary Poppins received a total of thirteen Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture – an unsurpassed record for any other film released by Walt Disney Studios and ended up winning five. The film was also selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2013, as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Mary Poppins is widely considered to be Walt Disney’s “crowning achievement,” being his only film to garner a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars in his lifetime.