‘Saving Mr. Banks’ will premiere at AFI Fest
“Saving Mr. Banks” will open the AFI FEST 2013 on Nov. 7, 2013.
The movie, starring Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks, and directed by John Lee Hancock will have its North American premiere at the festival.
“Saving Mr. Banks” is the untold story of how Walt Disney’s classic “Mary Poppins” made it to the screen.
According to the official synopsis, when Walt Disney comes up against the curmudgeonly, uncompromising writer P.L. Travers, played by Emma Thompson, 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.”
The screening of “Saving Mr. Banks” for the Opening Night Gala will be held at the TCL Chinese Theatre, formerly Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where, almost 50 years ago in 1964, Disney’s “Mary Poppins” premiered.
To celebrate both films, AFI plans to bring “Mary Poppins” back to the TCL Chinese Theatre for a special screening of the classic film over the weekend of the film festival.
The film will release in U.S. theaters on Dec. 13, 2013, limited, and open wide on Dec. 20, 2013.
