A live-action Mary Poppins TV series is in the works, and it is not a remake of the Disney movie. Deadline reports that the series plans to go back to P.L. Travers’ original eight Mary Poppins books and open up the larger, stranger world she created, rather than retelling the 1964 film with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.
A Darker, Stranger Mary Poppins
The Mary Poppins of the books is often described as more mysterious, mercurial and dangerous than her film version, and her adventures on the page are magical, surreal and sometimes frightening. Travers wrote the first book in 1934 and the last in 1988, which gives a series far more material than the Disney films drew on.
Who Is Behind It
Tom Winchester is developing and producing the series for Pure Fiction Television, an independent company backed by See-Saw Films, the studio behind Slow Horses and Heartstopper. Winchester has optioned the rights from the trustees of the P.L. Travers estate and is developing the show on their behalf.
Winchester was a producer on the first season of FX’s Emmy-winning Shōgun, and he is now approaching top-level showrunners for Mary Poppins.
Where Disney Fits In
Disney is not attached, at least not yet. According to Deadline, very early conversations are taking place with the studio, and while the project does not need Disney’s involvement from a rights standpoint, there is hope Disney will want to join given its history with the character. Nothing has been agreed, and the series is still at the pitch stage. Pure Fiction and Disney declined to comment.
Disney’s history with Mary Poppins is a complicated one. Walt Disney’s 1964 musical won five Oscars, including Best Actress for Andrews, but Travers openly criticized it. Their clash became the basis for the 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks, with Emma Thompson as Travers and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney.
Disney returned to the character in 2018 with Mary Poppins Returns, directed by Rob Marshall and starring Emily Blunt as the nanny and Lin-Manuel Miranda as the lamplighter Jack.
No network, streamer, showrunner or cast has been announced yet.
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