Disney's 'Mary Poppins Returns' Gets December 2018 Release Date

Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews in the original ‘Mary Poppins’ (Disney)

By Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter

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Disney on Monday announced that its Mary Poppins sequel will open on Dec. 25, 2018, more than five decades after the 1964 classic film first played in theaters. The studio also revealed the movie’s title for the first time: Mary Poppins Returns.

The musical stars Emily Blunt as the magical nanny opposite Lin-Manuel Miranda, star and creator of the Broadway hit musical Hamilton.

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Rob Marshall is directing Mary Poppins Returns from an adapted script by David Magee, as well as producing alongside Marc Platt and John DeLuca. Marc Shaiman is composing an all-new score, while he and Scott Wittman are collaborating in writing the original songs.

The character of Mary Poppins was first introduced to the world in P.L. Travers’ 1934 book, which Disney adapted into the 1964 movie starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. Travers wrote seven additional books about Mary Poppins that were published between 1935 and 1988.

“I am truly humbled and honored to be asked by Disney to bring P.L. Travers’ further adventures to the screen,“ Marshall said in a statement. "The iconic original film means so much to me personally, and I look forward to creating an original movie musical that can bring Mary Poppins, and her message that childlike wonder can be found in even the most challenging of times, to a whole new generation.”

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The story will be set in Depression-era London, where a now grown-up Jane and Michael Banks, along with Michael’s three children, are visited by their former nanny following a tragedy in the family that leaves them numb and joyless.

Miranda will play the role of Jack the lamplighter, a new character. He is fast becoming part of the studio fold, having composed the music for Disney’s upcoming animated film Moana and worked on the music for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The only other pic currently slotted to open on Christmas Day 2018 is an untitled event film from Warner Bros.

‘Mary Poppins’: Watch the 50th Anniversary trailer: