New Featurette On Hanks, Thompson & Disney In SAVING MR. BANKS

Highly anticipated new historically-based Disney feature film SAVING MR. BANKS is the first dramatic depiction of the man behind the house of mouse presented by the company itself and who better than recent LUCKY GUY Broadway leading man to essay the role of Walt?!

A new featurette offers a special focus on Hanks alongside accomplished two-time Academy Award-winning stage and screen star Emma Thompson, who plays the role of MARY POPPINS creator PL Travers in the forthcoming film.

The official description of SAVING MR. BANKS is as follows: "Two-time Academy Award-winner Emma Thompson and fellow double Oscar-winner Tom Hanks topline Disney's "Saving Mr. Banks," inspired by the extraordinary, untold backstory of how Disney's classic "Mary Poppins" made it to the screen. When Walt Disney's daughters begged him to make a movie of their favorite book, P.L. Travers' "Mary Poppins," he made them a promise-one that he didn't realize would take 20 years to keep. In his quest to obtain the rights, Walt comes up against a curmudgeonly, uncompromising writer who has absolutely no intention of letting her beloved magical nanny get mauled by the Hollywood machine. But, as the books stop selling and money grows short, Travers reluctantly agrees to go to Los Angeles to hear Disney's plans for the adaptation. For those two short weeks in 1961, Walt Disney pulls out all the stops. Armed with imaginative storyboards and chirpy songs from the talented Sherman brothers, Walt launches an all-out onslaught on P.L. Travers, but the prickly author doesn't budge. He soon begins to watch helplessly as Travers becomes increasingly immovable and the rights begin to move further away from his grasp. It is only when he reaches into his own childhood that Walt discovers the truth about the ghosts that haunt her, and together they set Mary Poppins free to ultimately make one of the most endearing films in cinematic history."

SAVING MR. BANKS was directed by John Lee Hancock, produced by Alison Owen, Ian Collie and Philip Steuer, with a screenplay written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith.

SAVING MR. BANKS will be released on December 13 in limited release and open wide on December 20.

View the new featurette on SAVING MR. BANKS below.