More than half a century after she
left the Banks faMily on her uMBrella,
the world’s greatest nanny is Back at
17 cherry tree lane to help theM work
through even More faMily draMa.
we speak to director roB Marshall,
producer Marc platt and stars eMily
Blunt and lin-Manuel Miranda aBout
Mary PoPPins returns...What’s to
happen all
happened
Before
WORDS AdAm tAnswelldisney likes to tAke its sweet time
when it comes to sequels.
The studio waited 41 years after the release
of 101 Dalmatians before putting out 101
Dalmatians 2, and the wait was longer still
for the sequels to Lady And The Tramp
(45 years), Peter Pan (49 years), Cinderella
(51 years) and Bambi (64 years). However,
all of those sequels were straight-to-video
affairs. There were no grand premieres, no
tie-in merchandise, and no expectations
whatsoever.
Mary Poppins Returns is a different matter
entirely. Since the original film was released
in 1964, there has been a 54-year gap to get a
sequel together, but the sequel isn’t about to
sneak out on DVD. It’s gigantic. Anyone who
follows film knows it’s happening. It has all
the bells and whistles, and tie-in products
aplenty, from cheap reproductions of
Poppins’ famous two-piece skirt suit to bath
scrubs inspired by ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’. It
even has Meryl Streep.
When a beloved film such as Mary
Poppins has a sequel, reboot or remake on
the horizon, people tend to get nostalgic, but
not always in a good way. There’s a lot of
reflection on how much the first film actually
impacted lives, and how an attempt to make
any improvements on the original could
very well end up ruining the retrospective
childhoods of many in the process. But,
rather strangely, there’s been very little of
that with Mary Poppins Returns.
It could be the fact that we’ve almost
unanimously decided that Emily Blunt really
is the right choice for an updated version of
the nanny, or it could be that Julie Andrews
has personally given the film her approval
(and what Julie Andrews says goes). Or it
could simply be that we all just want to see
Mary Poppins again, in whatever form she
may take.
“I think that she is such an icon, really,”
explains Poppins actor Emily Blunt, “and
sort of emblematic of your childhood