First Look At Tom Hanks And Emma Thompson In Disney Pictures’ SAVING MR. BANKS

Photo: TIME / FRANÇOIS DUHAMEL / DISNEY

Here’s your first look at Emma Thompson as author P.L. Travers and Tom Hanks as the legendary Walt Disney in Disney’s SAVING MR. BANKS, inspired by the extraordinary, untold backstory of how Disney’s classic “Mary Poppins” made it to the screen.

On playing Travers, Thompson told TIME, “She’s the most difficult person I’ve ever played.”

The film will release in U.S. theaters on December 13, 2013, limited, and open wide on December 20, 2013 – prime for a run during the upcoming Awards season. Two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks also has the Somali pirates film in the mix this Fall – Academy Awards bait, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, which will release on October 11th.

When Walt Disney’s daughters begged him to make a movie of their favorite book, P.L. Travers’ “Mary Poppins,” he made them a promise – one that he didn’t realize would take 20 years to keep. In his quest to obtain the rights, Walt comes up against a curmudgeonly, uncompromising writer who has absolutely no intention of letting her beloved magical nanny get mauled by the Hollywood machine. But, as the books stop selling and money grows short, Travers reluctantly agrees to go to Los Angeles to hear Disney’s plans for the adaptation.

For those two short weeks in 1961, Walt Disney pulls out all the stops. Armed with imaginative storyboards and chirpy songs from the talented Sherman brothers, Walt launches an all-out onslaught on P.L. Travers, but the prickly author doesn’t budge.  He soon begins to watch helplessly as Travers becomes increasingly immovable and the rights begin to move further away from his grasp.

It is only when he reaches into his own childhood that Walt discovers the truth about the ghosts that haunt her, and together they set Mary Poppins free to ultimately make one of the most endearing films in cinematic history.

Did you know:

• SAVING MR. BANKS is the first film to depict the iconic entrepreneur Walt Disney.
• Richard and Robert Sherman’s original score and song (“Chim Chim-Cher-ee”) would go on to win Oscars® at the 1965 ceremonies.
• “Mary Poppins” won five awards of its 13 Academy Award® nominations: Best Actress (Julie Andrews), Best Effects, Best Film Editing, Original Score and Original Song. Among the nominations were Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
• Disney began his quest to get the rights to “Mary Poppins” in the 1940s as a promise to his two daughters.
• P.L. Travers’ father was a banker and is the basis for the “Mary Poppins” story’s patriarch, Mr. Banks – the character in the book whom the famous fictional nanny comes to aid.

The film also stars Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, Annie Rose Buckley, Ruth Wilson, B.J. Novak, Rachel Griffiths, and Kathy Baker.

Disney presents SAVING MR. BANKS, directed by John Lee Hancock, produced by Alison Owen, Ian Collie and Philip Steuer, and written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith. Executive producers are Paul Trijbits, Andrew Mason, Troy Lum and Christine Langan.

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