Saving Mr. Banks is a 2013 biographical film directed by John Lee Hancock and written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith. Centered on the development of the 1964 film Mary Poppins, the film stars Emma Thompson as book author P. L. Travers and Tom Hanks as film producer Walt Disney, with supporting performances by Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, Colin Farrell, Ruth Wilson, and B. J. Novak. Deriving its title from the father in Travers's story, Saving Mr. Banks depicts the author's tragic childhood in rural Queensland in 1906 and the two weeks of meetings during 1961 in Los Angeles, during which Disney attempts to obtain the film rights to her novels.
Essential Media and Entertainment and BBC Films initially developed Saving Mr. Banks as an independent production until 2011, when producer Alison Owen approached Walt Disney Pictures for permission to use copyrighted elements. The film's subject matter piqued Disney's interest, leading the studio to acquire the screenplay and produce the film. Principal photography commenced the following year in September before wrapping in November 2012; the film was shot almost entirely in the Southern California area, primarily at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, where a majority of the film's narrative takes place.
Saving Mr. Banks premiered at the BFI London Film Festival on October 20, 2013, and was distributed theatrically by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures that same year in the United Kingdom on November 29 and in North America on December 13. The film received positive reviews, and was named one of the 10 best films of 2013 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute, and was also commercially successful, grossing over $117 million at the worldwide box office. Thompson's performance garnered BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Actress, while composer Thomas Newman earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score.
Plot
In London 1961, literary agent Diarmuid Russell urges financially strapped author Pamela "P. L." Travers to travel to Los Angeles and meet with Walt Disney, who has pursued the film rights to her Mary Poppins stories for 20 years after having promised his daughters to produce a film based on the books. Travers has steadfastly resisted Disney's efforts, fearing what he will do to her character. Having written nothing new and her book royalties having dried up, she risks losing her house. Russell reminds her that Disney has agreed to two major stipulations (no animation and unprecedented script approval) before she finally agrees to go.
Flashbacks depict Travers's difficult childhood in Allora, Queensland, Australia in 1906, which became the inspiration for much of Mary Poppins. Travers idolized her loving, imaginative father, Travers Robert Goff, but his chronic alcoholism resulted in his repeated dismissals, strained her parents' marriage and caused her distressed mother's attempted suicide. Goff died from tuberculosis when Travers was eight years old. Prior to his death, her mother's stern, practical sister came to live with the family and later served as Travers's main inspiration for the Mary Poppins character.
In Los Angeles, Travers is shocked by the city's nature and the overly perky inhabitants, personified by her friendly limousine driver, Ralph. At the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Travers meets the creative team who are developing Mary Poppins for the screen: screenwriter Don DaGradi and songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman. She finds their presumptions and casual manners highly improper, a view that she also holds of the jocular Disney.
Travers's working relationship with Disney and his team is difficult from the outset, with her insistence that Mary Poppins is the enemy of sentiment and whimsy. Disney and his people are puzzled by Travers's disdain for whimsy, given the nature of the Mary Poppins story, as well as Travers's own rich imagination. She particularly objects to how the character George Banks, the children's estranged father, is depicted, insisting that he is neither cold nor cruel. Gradually, the team grasp how deeply personal the Mary Poppins stories are to Travers and how many of the characters were inspired by her past.
The team acknowledges that Travers has valid criticisms and make changes, although she becomes increasingly disengaged as painful childhood memories resurface. Seeking to understand what troubles her, Disney invites Travers to Disneyland, which, along with her developing friendship with Ralph, the creative team's revisions to the George Banks character, the addition of a new song and a different ending, help dissolve Travers's opposition. Her creativity reawakens, and she begins collaborating with the team. Soon afterward, however, Travers discovers an animation sequence with dancing penguins has been added without her permission. Travers confronts Disney over this and returns to London in a huff without signing the agreement.
Disney learns that "P. L. Travers" is a pen name, taken from Travers's father's given name; her real name is Helen Goff, and she is Australian, not British. This gives Disney new insight into Travers, and he follows her to London. Arriving unexpectedly at her home, Disney, who had begun to realise that Travers's father has played a vital role in her books and the film, shares his own less-than-ideal childhood but stresses the healing value of his art. He urges Travers not to let deeply rooted past disappointments dictate the present. That night, after Disney has left, Travers finally relents and grants the film rights to him.
Three years later, in 1964, Travers has begun writing another Mary Poppins story, while the film Mary Poppins itself is to have its world premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Disney has not invited Travers, fearing how she might react with the press watching. Prompted by Russell, Travers shows up unannounced at Disney's office; he reluctantly issues her an invitation. Initially, she watches Mary Poppins with a lack of enthusiasm, particularly with the animated penguins. Travers gradually warms to the rest of the film, however, becoming deeply moved by the depiction of George Banks's personal crisis and redemption.
Cast Emma Thompson as Pamela "P. L." Travers, birth name Helen Goff, author of Mary Poppins Annie Rose Buckley as seven-year-old Helen, also referred to as "Ginty" Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, film producer and studio mogul Colin Farrell as Travers Robert Goff, Helen's loving but self-destructive father, on whom the Mr. Banks character is based Paul Giamatti as Ralph, Travers's chauffeur Jason Schwartzman as Richard M. Sherman, composer and lyricist who wrote Mary Poppins' songs Bradley Whitford as Don DaGradi, co-writer of the screenplay for Mary Poppins Ruth Wilson as Margaret Goff, Helen's mother B. J. Novak as Robert B. Sherman, composer and lyricist who co-wrote the film's songs with his younger brother Richard Rachel Griffiths as Helen "Ellie" Morehead, Helen's maternal aunt, who serves as the model for Mary Poppins Kathy Baker as Tommie, Disney's executive assistant Melanie Paxson as Dolly, Disney's secretary Ronan Vibert as Diarmuid Russell, Travers's literary agent Kristopher Kyer as Dick Van Dyke (uncredited) Victoria Summer as Julie Andrews (uncredited)
Credits adapted from The New York Times.
Production
Development In 2002, Australian producer Ian Collie produced a documentary film on P. L. Travers titled The Shadow of "Mary Poppins". During the documentary's production, Collie noticed that there was "an obvious biopic there" and convinced Essential Media and Entertainment to develop a feature film with Sue Smith writing the screenplay. The project attracted the attention of BBC Films, which decided to finance the project, and Ruby Films' Alison Owen, who subsequently hired Kelly Marcel to co-write the screenplay with Smith. Marcel's drafts removed a subplot involving Travers and her son, and divided the story into a two-part narrative: the creative conflict between Travers and Walt Disney, and her dealings with her childhood issues, describing it as "a story about the pain of a little girl who suffered, and the grown woman who allowed herself to let go". Marcel's version, however, featured certain intellectual property rights of music and imagery which would be impossible to use without permission from The Walt Disney Company. "There was always that elephant in the room, which is Disney," Collie recalled. "We knew Walt Disney was a key character in the film and we wanted to use quite a bit of the music. We knew we'd eventually have to show Disney." In early 2010, Robert B. Sherman provided Owen with an advance copy of a salient chapter from his then upcoming book release, Moose: Chapters From My Life. The chapter entitled, "'Tween Pavement and Stars" contained characterizations and anecdotes which proved seminal to Marcel's script rewrite, in particular, the anecdote about there not being the color red in London.Sherman, Robert B. "Tween Pavement and Stars" ("No Red In London") in Moose: Chapters From My Life, AuthorHouse Publishing, Bloomington, IN, p. 372-375. In July 2011, while attending the Ischia Film Festival, Owen met with Corky Hale, who offered to present the screenplay to Richard M. Sherman. Sherman read the screenplay and gave the producers his support. Later that year, Marcel and Smith's screenplay was listed in Franklin Leonard's The Black List, voted by producers as one of the best screenplays that were not in production.
In November 2011, Walt Disney Pictures' president of production, Sean Bailey, was informed by executive Tendo Nagenda of Marcel's existing script. Realizing that the screenplay included a depiction of the studio's namesake, Bailey conferred with Disney CEO Bob Iger and Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn, the latter of whom referred to the film as a "brand deposit," a term adopted from Steve Jobs. Together, the executives discussed the studio's potential choices; purchase the script and shut the project down, put the film in turnaround, or co-produce the film themselves. With executive approval, Disney acquired the screenplay in February 2012 and joined the production with Owen, Collie and Philip Steuer as producers, and Christine Langan, Troy Lum, Andrew Mason, and Paul Trijbits serving as executive producers. John Lee Hancock was hired to direct the film later that same month.
Iger subsequently contacted Tom Hanks to consider playing the role of Walt Disney, which would become the first-ever focal depiction of Disney in a mainstream film. Hanks accepted the role and made several visits to the Walt Disney Family Museum and interviewed some of Disney's former employees and family relatives, including his daughter Diane Disney Miller. The film was subsequently dedicated to Disney Miller, who died shortly before it was released. In April 2012, Emma Thompson entered final negotiations to star as P. L. Travers, after the studio was unable to secure Meryl Streep for the part. Thompson said that the role was the most difficult one that she has played, describing Travers as "a woman of quite eye-watering complexity and contradiction." "She wrote a very good essay on sadness, because she was, in fact, a very sad woman. She'd had a very rough childhood, the alcoholism of her father being part of it and the attempted suicide of her mother being another part of it. I think that she spent her whole life in a state of fundamental inconsolability and hence got a lot done." Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, B. J. Novak, and Ruth Wilson were cast in July 2012.