When news got out last fall that Emily Blunt was in contention to star in a new Mary Poppins, it seemed like a perfect fit. She's already worked with the film's director, Rob Marshall, on the fairy tale musical Into the Woods, so she has the whole singing and dancing thing down. While there wasn't much chatter about the casting since, it looks like Blunt is ready to play one of Disney's most iconic characters.
THR says Blunt has entered talks to play Mary Poppins, which Marshall will direct from a script by David Magee (Life of Pi) with music provided by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. The film draws from all of P.L.Travers' novels and takes place twenty years after the original. The story of how Travers was convinced by Walt Disney to turn Mary Poppins into the classic 1964 movie was chronicled just a couple of years ago in Disney's Saving Mr. Banks.
The confusing aspect is the timeline. Twenty years later would make Mary Poppins much older than Blunt is now, so either the magical nanny is immortal, which is a possibility, or something else is going on. Perhaps Blunt's scenes are flashbacks to her younger days?
