Update: Deadline is now reporting that Tom Hanks is officially in talks to play Walt Disney, with Emma Thompson even further along the negotiation stage for author PL Travers.
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There has been some chatter recently about Disney sniffing around the rights to Black List script Saving Mr Banks, which follows the intriguing story behind the making of Mary Poppins. Now the studio might just have a director close to bringing it to life, with The Blind Side’s John Lee Hancock in early talks.
Written by Kelly Marcel, Banks follows Walt Disney’s real-life efforts to persuade Australian author PL Travers to sell him the rights to adapt her iconic magic nanny character. It was no small campaign; Walt spent 14 years wearing Travers down on the idea. The result was the 1964 film, which starred Julie Andrews as Poppins, Dick Van Dyke as Bert and David Tomlinson as Mr Banks. It went on to score 13 Oscar nominations and four wins.
Travers, however, wasn’t exactly all that thrilled with either the filmmaking process or the final result – her story was a highly personal one, tied in with the death of her own father when she was seven. And despite the critical and box office success of the movie, she hated the animated portions enough that she refused Disney the rights to any of her other works. We’re still wondering whether it was Van Dyke’s cock-er-nee accent that tipped her over the edge.
Hancock has been throwing himself into various developing projects of late. He’s already working on crime drama Highwaymen and John Grisham adaptation The Partner, but if he does sign on Banks, it’ll be a very different prospect. According to Deadline, Disney is keen on getting this one shooting this year and the likes of Tom Hanks and Meryl “If I’m playing a real person you might as well hand me an Oscar nomination now” Streep are already being bandied about, albeit strictly in rumour territory for now.