Development A sequel to
Mary Poppins had been gestating in
development hell since the first film's release in 1964.
Walt Disney attempted to produce a sequel a year later but was rejected by the author
P. L. Travers, who dismissed Disney's first adaptation. In the late 1980s, the chairman of
Walt Disney Studios,
Jeffrey Katzenberg, and the vice-president of live-action production, Martin Kaplan, approached Travers with the idea of a sequel set years after the first film, with the Banks children now as adults and
Julie Andrews reprising her role as an older Mary Poppins. Travers again rejected the concept except for Andrews' return, suggesting a sequel set one year after the original film with Andrews reprising the role. That idea also did not come to fruition, however, because Travers would not go ahead without certain caveats that the company would not concede, including barring Poppins' clothing from being red.
Michael Jackson was considered to play a role to replace Bert. Travers' attempt to make a sequel to the first film with her involvement was not deterred. In the 1980s, she and
Brian Sibley, a good friend whom she met in the 1970s, wrote a
screenplay for a sequel titled
Mary Poppins Comes Back, based on the parts from Travers' second
Mary Poppins book unused in the 1964 film. Sibley then wrote a letter to
Roy E. Disney about making the film, to which Disney contracted them to supply a
film treatment. According to Sibley, Travers wrote notes on his script ideas and though she rejected some of them, she liked some of them, including replacing Bert with his brother, an ice cream man in a park in Edwardian London who similarly served as Mary's friend and potential admirer. Four months later, however, casting issues emerged, as Andrews temporarily retired from making films and was not interested in reprising her role as Mary Poppins. It was tricky to find an actor to play Bert's brother, though an executive suggested that singer
Michael Jackson was right for the part. The planned sequel was eventually cancelled because of a combination of issues: the casting problems and the fact that new executives took over the company. The 2004 release of the 40th Anniversary DVD of the original film contained a trivia track that stated, in regards to a possible sequel, "One day the wind may change again ...". On 14 September 2015,
Walt Disney Pictures president
Sean Bailey had
pitched a new
Mary Poppins film to
Rob Marshall,
John DeLuca, and
Marc Platt, as the team had produced
Into the Woods for the studio the year prior. With approval from Travers' estate, Disney greenlit the project with the film taking place 25 years after the first featuring a standalone narrative, based on the remaining seven books in the
series. Marshall was hired to direct, while DeLuca and Platt would serve as producers along with Marshall.
David Magee was hired to write the script.
Casting On 18 February 2016,
Emily Blunt entered negotiations to play the title role in the sequel. On 24 February 2016,
Lin-Manuel Miranda was cast in the film to play Jack, a lamplighter. In April 2016, Disney confirmed that the film was in development and Blunt and Miranda's castings. In May, Disney announced the film's title as
Mary Poppins Returns. By July 2016,
Meryl Streep had entered negotiations to join the cast to play cousin Topsy, and would be officially cast in September.
Ben Whishaw was in negotiations to play the adult Michael Banks in August, with
Emily Mortimer cast as the adult Jane Banks, and
Colin Firth joined the film as William Weatherall Wilkins, president of the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank in October. In February 2017,
Angela Lansbury was cast to play the Balloon Lady.
Julie Andrews, who portrayed Poppins in the 1964 film, was approached to do a cameo (possibly as the Balloon Lady before the part was offered to Lansbury) in the sequel but turned down the offer as she wanted it to be "Emily's show".
Dick Van Dyke, who portrayed
Bert and Mr. Dawes Sr. in the original film, returns in the sequel as the latter's son, Mr. Dawes Jr., replacing
Arthur Malet, who died in 2013.
Karen Dotrice, who played the young Jane Banks in the original, has a
cameo appearance in the film.
Filming Principal photography on the film began on 10 February 2017, at
Shepperton Studios in
Surrey, England. Eight soundstages were used to build practical sets for the film, including Cherry Tree Lane, and the enormous abandoned park, where a big part of the musical number, "Trip a Little Light Fantastic", was set. Scenes requiring green and blue screens for visual effects were first filmed on J and K Stages with physical set pieces for the cast to interact with, which were then swapped out in post-production with animation. Unlike the first film, which was wholly shot within soundstages in
Hollywood, filming also took place on location, including outside the
Bank of England in March 2017, and outside
Buckingham Palace in April 2017. Principal photography was wrapped by July 2017.
Visual effects and animation The visual effects were provided by
Cinesite,
Framestore,
Luma Pictures,
Pixomondo, the
Government of Victoria with the assistance of
Film Victoria (both in
Australia), and TPO VFX and supervised by Christian Irles, Christian Kaestner, Brendan Seals, Matthew Tinsley and Matt Johnson. Like the original film, this film includes a sequence combining live action and traditional hand-drawn animation. According to Marshall, he asked for an animated/live-action sequence rather than employing modern
CGI animation, feeling that it was vital to hold on the classic hand-drawn animation to protect the spirit of the original film. The animation sequence was developed and overall supervision was handled by
Jim Capobianco, with Ken Duncan supervising physical animation production at his studio in
Pasadena, California. Over 70 animation artists specializing in hand-drawn 2D animation from
Walt Disney Animation Studios,
Pixar Animation Studios, and other animation studios were recruited for the sequence.
Musical score and soundtrack album The music and score for the film was composed by
Marc Shaiman, with song lyrics written by
Scott Wittman and Shaiman. The complete soundtrack album was released by
Walt Disney Records on 7 December 2018. ==Release==