Disney’s Mary Poppins is rightfully a classic. It introduced Julie Andrews to the world; it was her feature film debut, and she picked up a Best Actress Oscar for her delightful performance. It also won Oscars for its visual effects, including its blend of live-action and animation in certain sequences, as well as for editing, score, and song (for the chimney sweep anthem “Chim Chim Cher-ee”).
It was a huge hit for the studio, decades later spawning both a making-of drama and a sequel, and remains a wholesome touchstone of 1960s cinematic musicals. So why not go back to the Mary Poppins well for more? And this time, why not make the eccentric nanny a little darker and stranger—in other worlds, more closely inspired by the source-material novels?
According to Deadline, that’s the strategy in place for a new live-action Mary Poppins TV series, which will “go back to P.L. Travers’ original eight Mary Poppins books and open up the larger, stranger world she created. The Mary Poppins of the novels is often noted for being more mysterious, mercurial, and dangerous than her film incarnation, and the adventures in the books are magical, surreal, and sometimes frightening.”
This could be exactly what the world needs right now, no offense to the whole “spoonful of sugar” approach to things. The trade reports the project is still in the initial pitching stages, but producer Tom Winchester (Shogun) “is developing the series on behalf of the trustees of the P.L. Travers estate from whom he has optioned the rights.”
Though Disney’s participation isn’t required as far as the rights go, “there’s hope the studio might want to join the project given their history with the IP”—though again, it’s still very early days.
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