Tom Hanks Playing Walt Disney In ‘Saving Mr. Banks’
Some fantastic news for Disney fans today. Disney has announced that production has started today for the upcoming film Saving Mr. Banks, this film follows Walt Disney’s fourteen-year courtship to acquire the film rights to P.L. Travers popular novel, Mary Poppins.
Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks will be portraying the man behind the mouse himself in the upcoming film. This will actually be the first time we see the portrayal of Walt Disney on screen in a dramatic film. Actress Emma Thompson will be playing P.L. Travers, the Australian author behind Mary Poppins. Collin Farrell is also reported to appear in the film as Travers father. Most likely we will see him in make-up and flashback scenes I am assuming.
When Travers travels from London to Hollywood in 1961 to finally discuss Disney’s desire to bring her beloved character to the motion picture screen (a quest he began in the 1940s as a promise to his two daughters), Disney meets a prim, uncompromising sexagenarian not only suspect of the impresario’s concept for the film, but a woman struggling with her own past. During her stay in California, Travers’ reflects back on her childhood in 1906 Australia, a trying time for her family which not only molded her aspirations to write, but one that also inspired the characters in her 1934 book.
None more so than the one person whom she loved and admired more than any other—her caring father, Travers Goff, a tormented banker who, before his untimely death that same year, instills the youngster with both affection and enlightenment (and would be the muse for the story’s patriarch, Mr. Banks, the sole character that the famous nanny comes to aide). While reluctant to grant Disney the film rights, Travers comes to realize that the acclaimed Hollywood storyteller has his own motives for wanting to make the film—which, like the author, hints at the relationship he shared with his own father in the early 20th Century Midwest.
The film also features Jason Schwartzman, BJ Novak, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford, Kathy Baker, Rachel Griffiths and many others. Saving Mr. Banks will be directed by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, The Rookie) based on a screenplay by Kelly Marcel. You should definitely expect this one to be one of those heart felt movies. A 2013 release date is expected but no specific date has been set.
Source: Examiner
