Rob Marshall's 'Mary Poppins' Is Not A Remake, It's An "Extension"

A new Mary Poppins is coming from Disney, that much we know. But exactly what kind of a new Mary Poppins are we talking? Is it a remake? A sequel? A reimagining from a different perspective? One of those weird reboot-quel hybrids that spends the running time of an entire feature film explaining that technically, this reboot is actually a sequel? (Yes, Terminator: Genisys, X-Men: Days of Future Past, I'm talking about you.)

Based on director Rob Marshall's comments, the answer appears to be "none of the above." It's definitely not a remake, but it's not quite a sequel; either, instead, it's what he calls an "extension." Read his Mary Poppins remake comments after the jump. 

Marshall stressed his Mary Poppins' most-certainly-not-a-remake-ness in a chat with Vulture:

It is not a new Mary Poppins. P.L. Travers wrote eight books all together. They worked from the first book, and we are working from the other books, not touching the iconic brilliance of Mary Poppins. This is an extension. I'm a huge fan of the original, and I'm a very good friend of Julie Andrews, and I hold it in such awe. There is all this new material — it was the Harry Potter of its time — and they were never turned into anything further than that adventure.

Instead, Marshall explained, his Mary Poppins will be set in 1934, when P.L. Travers' original book was published. And it'll pull from the later installments of the series, following the further adventures of Poppins and the Banks family. All of which would seem to suggest that the new Mary Poppins will be a sequel. But as we reported last month, Disney doesn't quite envision it as that, either. So the correct term here is probably "reboot." But Hollywood is sometimes shy about using that term, so "extension" it is.

Whatever Marshall calls it, he's pretty much guaranteed to get some grumbling from fans who'd prefer he leave the 1964 movie alone. For what it's worth, though, Julie Andrews, who was practically perfect in every way in that earlier film, is apparently all for the idea of an, um, extension. Here's Marshall again:

She is a very dear friend, and if she could be involved in some way, it would be very special. I know she is very happy that we're doing it and, after 50 years, feels that it is time.

Marshall did not mention whether those Emily Blunt rumors were true, or who else might step into the nanny's "practically perfect in every way" shoes. There's no release date yet, either, but it's worth noting that the studio has set aside four release dates between 2017 and 2019 for unnamed live-action fairy tales.