A new report reveals that everyone’s favorite magical nanny might be heading to the small screen.
Deadline Hollywood reports that producer Tom Winchester (Shōgun, Pure Fiction Television) is currently developing a new Mary Poppins TV series, working directly with the trustees of author P.L. Travers’ estate. This would be the character's second television adaptation.
Early talks with Disney are already happening behind closed doors, though it's still too soon to say whether the show will end up on Disney+ or find a home elsewhere.
If your only memory of Mary Poppins is Julie Andrews singing on a rooftop, a faithful adaptation of the original 1934 books might provide a little bit of a shock.
Disney took Travers’ collection of dark, episodic tales and sanded off all the sharp edges, turning them into a cozy, heart-warming musical.
The biggest contrast, however, comes down to the nanny herself. Book-Mary isn't nearly as sweet or gentle; she's vain, strict, and notoriously sharp-tongued which sets up a drastically different vibe for this new television take.
The storytelling style takes a totally different route, too, as books are more of a loose collection of standalone short stories devoid of a single narrative throughline. Mary blows in and out whenever she feels like it, whereas the Disney movie weaves those chaotic, magical outings into a structured narrative with a definitive emotional payoff for the Banks family.
Things also get considerably darker in the books whenever the Banks kids try to go off on their own magical escapades without Mary Poppins.
The kids quickly realize that Mary’s wild abilities and fearsome reputation aren't just for show, they're the only thing standing between them and a world of genuinely dangerous creatures and unsettling situations.
Travers was infamously not happy with the original Mary Poppins movie, and her battle with Disney serves as the basis of the 2013 biographical film, Saving Mr. Banks, which starred Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson. Hanks played Walt Disney and Thompson portrayed P.L. Travers.
Travers reportedly hated the film's animation sequences, particularly the one involving the dancing penguins. She felt that it made her sophisticated story, which took inspiration from her own childhood and relationship with her father, trivial and childish.
If this project moves forward, it would be the second television adaptation of Mary Poppins as CBS aired an adaptation of Mary Poppins in December 1949 as an episode of the popular anthology series Studio One.