Mary Poppins Returns! Or rather, she will on December 25th, 2018, but Entertainment Weekly has returned from Cherry Tree Lane today bearing gifts – specifically, a slew of new photos for Disney and Rob Marshall’s magical follow-up.
It’s a sequel that’s been on the cards for a generation, and it’s really a testimony to the enduring legacy of P.L. Travers’ eight-book series that even now, more than 50 years after she first floated via umbrella onto the big screen, that Mary Poppins is still one of, if not the most renown nannies in cinema. Edge of Tomorrow actress Emily Blunt closed a deal to play Poppins more than a year ago after receiving the blessing of Julie Andrews, and up above you’ll see Blunt kitted out in period garb and floating over the cobbled streets of London.
By her side is Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays Mary’s close friend Jack, an exuberant lamplighter and former apprentice of Dick Van Dyke’s famed chimney sweep, Bert. Van Dyke is due to bear witness to Mary Poppins returning, too, but more on that later.
As part of EW’s cover story, the outlet spoke with writer-director Rob Marshall about the pressure and heightened sense of expectation that come hand-in-hand with directing a sequel 50 years in the making.
The bar is so high for this. But to be able to walk in the footsteps of this beautiful story about a woman who brings magic to this family that’s looking for wonder and hope and joy in their lives… I feel a great responsibility and reverence every day. We all feel it. We’re just lifting it up to get there with the right intentions behind it.
With Mary Poppins Returns, Emily Blunt’s charming nanny will also pay a visit to Michael and Jane Banks – Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer, respectively – who are now all grown up with children of their own. Also starring Julie Walters, Colin Firth, and Meryl Streep, there is perhaps no other actor who feels more at home on the London set than Dick Van Dyke.
Dick Van Dyke said that the thing he remembers the most about doing the original film was the spirit, and he said, ‘It’s exactly the same spirit here.’ He was right here on Cherry Tree Lane and he said, ‘I feel like I’m home.’
Oh, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Mary Poppins Returns will whisk moviegoers off on a heartfelt journey to Depression-era London when Disney’s long-in-development sequel descends from the heavens on December 25th, 2018.
