Ever since its announcement back in September, the existence of the new Mary Poppins film has been met with a predictably negative response from our readers, particularly those who hold the classic 1964 film (the new film will take place 20 years after the original) near and dear. If you are one of these readers, then it might interest you to know the director is not at all interested in simply remaking the first film. Rather, he and his team have much grander plans for this new film.

During an interview at last month’s National Arts Awards, director Rob Marshall made a point of going on record by saying this film won’t be a remake or even a re-imaging of Mary Poppins in any way. He made a point of this by noting that the material for a new film already exists in the books:

“It is not a new ‘Mary Poppins’… P.L. Travers wrote eight books all together. They worked from the first book, and we are working from the other books, not touching the iconic brilliance of Mary Poppins. This is an extension. I’m a huge fan of the original, and I’m a very good friend of Julie Andrews, and I hold it in such awe…There is all this new material — it was the ‘Harry Potter’ of its time — and they were never turned into anything further than that adventure.”

Whether or not you trust Marshall to do a good job is something I will leave up to the reader. I will say that he appears to be super-enthused about the material and that’s a good enough start. We’ll see how that enthusiasm translates in to the movie.

Rob Marshall will direct the new film from a screenplay by David Magee (Finding Neverland and Life of Pi), while songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray and NBC’s Smash) will compose new songs and an original score.

Do you have any thoughts on Rob Marshall’s comments? Do they affect your view of the new Mary Poppins film in any way?

Edited by: Hannah Wilkes