Mary Poppins
On 14 September 2015, Disney announced a new "Mary Poppins" film was to be made, with a new plot and new songs, although in P. L. Travers' final will, another movie version was not to be made according to her wishes. The film is directed by Rob Marshall and written by David Magee. Songs are composed by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who both received support from Richard Sherman, who, along with his late brother-collaborator Robert Sherman wrote the iconic song score of the original "Mary Poppins" film. The film is not a reboot or remake of the original 1964 film; in this film Mary Poppins revisits the now-adult Banks children from the first film and takes charge of the three children of Michael Banks. It is loosely based on the other seven "Mary Poppins" books by Travers, and expands beyond them. Emily Blunt stars as Mary Poppins, alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda in the role of Jack, a similar character to Dick Van Dyke's "Bert" from the first film. It was announced on 31 May 2016 that the film would be titled "Mary Poppins Returns" and would take place in Depression-era London, 25 years after the events of the original film. Emily Mortimer and Ben Whishaw play grown-up Jane and Michael Banks. The release date was 21 December 2018 in the US and the UK.
Busker Alley
Brothers Robert and Richard Sherman had written the scores to several Disney movies such as "Mary Poppins" and "The Jungle Book". In the mid 1960s, Disney staff scriptwriter, AJ Carothers rediscovered the motion picture "St. Martin's Lane" and approached the Sherman brothers with the idea of purchasing the rights to the film and making a stage musical out it. The Shermans and AJ Carothers did just that in 1969, writing the musical "Piccadilly". But nothing more became of it until 1982 when interest was rekindled, and the project was rewritten and renamed, "Blow Us a Kiss". Still, nothing happened with the property until later in the same decade when interest was again sparked, and Tommy Tune became attached to the show.