With Emily Blunt set to assume the practically-perfect-in-every-way lead role, Disney is now trying to lure Broadway sensation and Grammy winner Lin-Manuel Miranda to its Mary Poppins sequel. The Hamilton composer and star is reportedly in talks to play Jack, Mary’s lamplighter friend who must help her help the now-adult Banks children, Jane and Michael, after they suffer a “personal loss.” Despite his manual-labor profession and his affinity for the singing nanny, Jack is no Bert—he’s an original creation, like Rickey Rouse and Monald Muck. But we bet Miranda could totally pull off the one-man band thing.
Chicago’s Rob Marshall is directing the film, which is definitely a sequel and not just another float in the seemingly endless parade of reboots and remakes. Despite Marshall’s implication that the new film could easily be inspired by any one of P.L. Travers’ multiple Mary Poppins works, the “Banks kids are now sad grown-ups” plot doesn’t actually appear to be borrowed from any of those stories. So we’ll see what David Magee (Life Of Pi, Finding Neverland) is able to make of it as the sequel’s screenwriter. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray the musical) are set to compose an original score and songs for the sequel, though even they could probably benefit from Miranda’s insight.
