American Film Market Dailies

John Lee Hancock returns to the director’s chair following his Oscar®-winning THE BLIND SIDE (2009). After studying law, Hancock co-founded Legal Aliens Theatre Company in Los Angeles and has worked as a screenwriter (A PERFECT WORLD, MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL) and producer (MY DOG SKIP, THE ROOKIE, THE ALAMO).

When Walt Disney’s daughters begged him to make an adaptation of their favorite book, P.L. Travers’ “Mary Poppins,” he made them a promise he didn’t realize would take 20 years to keep. Inspired by true events, this stirring and comical movie shows how Walt (Tom Hanks) goes up against an uncompromising writer (Emma Thompson) who has 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 Walt’s pitch. For two short weeks in 1961, 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 watches helplessly as Travers becomes increasingly immovable and the rights begin to slip further away from his grasp.