First Look At Tom Hanks As Walt Disney On The Set Of Saving Mr. Banks

Saving Mr. Banks has been shooting for a few weeks now, but it’s only now that we get our first slightly fuzzy look at him as Walt Disney, and to be honest, he does look the part. There’s also a shot below of Emma Thompson as PL Travers, from a scene that was shot on Hollywood Boulevard. The other pics seem to have been taken at Disneyland. The pics come from InsideTheMagic and the imagineeringdis Twitter account.

Tom Hanks is playing Walt Disney (it’s the first time the entrepreneur has ever been depicted in a dramatic film) alongside fellow double Oscar-winner Emma Thompson in the role of prickly Mary Poppins novelist, Travers. The film follows how, before signing away the book’s rights, Travers’ demands for contractual script and character control circumvent not only Disney’s vision for the film adaptation, but also those of the creative team of screenwriter Don DaGradi and sibling composers Richard and Robert Sherman.

When Travers travels from London to Hollywood in 1961 to finally discuss Disney’s desire to bring her beloved character to the motion picture screen (a quest he began in the 1940s as a promise to his two daughters), Disney meets a prim, uncompromising sexagenarian not only suspect of the impresario’s concept for the film, but a woman struggling with her own past. During her stay in California, Travers’ reflects back on her childhood in 1906 Australia, a trying time for her family which not only molded her aspirations to write, but one that also inspired the characters in her 1934 book.

The film is due for an Oscar-bait December 2013 release.