If you can bear the notion of Emma Thompson replacing Meryl Streep, you should be able to take this news suitably. According to Variety, Tom Hanks and Thompson have been pulled into Saving Mr. Banks, a Disney-produced film about Walt Disney‘s fourteen-year quest to adapt P.L. Travers‘ Mary Poppins, and how the author was particularly difficult to pin down. (The script reportedly goes into her post-release reaction — which, from what I understand, was not terribly good.) John Lee Hancock is already pegged to direct, with production more than likely in their distant futures.

Our first report on the screenplay (written by Kelly Marcel) said, somewhat prematurely, that both Hanks and Streep were being courted for the roles of Disney and Travers, respectively; this duo is where we are now, but I’d easily say Thompson‘s just as good of a pick. Seeing these two fight over anything — much less the rights to a book — should make for compelling material, and I’ll take its Black List status as another positive sign. I’m still not sold on the idea of Disney making a film about their almighty founder in some kind of conflict, for reasons quite simple, but I’ll take the biased messages in stride if the both of them can bring their A-game. And, really, I have no reason to think they wouldn’t.

Would Hanks and Thompson make a good onscreen pairing? What do you make of this project as a whole?