Saving Mr. Banks got off the ground with a strong cast already attached, as Tom Hanks is set to play Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as Mary Poppins author PL Travers. Now Colin Farrell is in negotiations to join the Walt Disney Pictures film, according to Deadline.
The film is about Travers and shifts between her childhood days in early 1900s Queensland, which helped inform her creation of Mary Popping, and her experiences in the 1960s, negotiating with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) for a big-screen adaptation of her books. She long held out from Disney’s advances, but eventually sold the rights (although she wasn’t happy with the resulting film).
Colin Farrell will play the author’s father, a banker who starts drinking heavily after going through some hard times financially. His hardships had a profound effect on her writing and it was him who Mr. Banks in Mary Poppins was based on.
John Lee Hancock is directing from a screenplay by Kelly Marcel, with shooting scheduled to begin in the autumn.