Cast of SAVING MR. BANKS to Lead 'Mary Poppins Singalong'

According to the New York Post's Page Six, cast members from SAVING MR. BANKS will join together the night the film premieres at this year's AFI Fest in LA to lead a "spirited singalong" of favorite songs from Disney's Mary Poppins.

Disney chief Alan Horn will host the event in which two-time Academy Award-winner and Poppins composer Richard Sherman will play a baby grand for the 150 guests in attendance. Along with the joy of singing such classics as 'I Love to Laugh' and "Chim Chim Cher-ee", attendees will receive a collectible book of lyrics.

According to the report, a similar event is being planned at New York's Four Seasons restaurant.

Starring Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, Annie Rose Buckley, Ruth Wilson, B.J. Novak, Rachel Griffiths and Kathy Baker, the film opens in limited theaters on December 13 before expanding wide on December 20.

When Walt Disney's daughters begged him to make a movie of their favorite book, P.L. Travers' "Mary Poppins," he made them a promise - one that he didn't realize would take 20 years to keep. In his quest to obtain the rights, Walt comes up against a curmudgeonly, uncompromising writer 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.

It is only when he reaches into his own childhood that Walt discovers the truth about the ghosts that haunt her, and together they set Mary Poppins free to ultimately make one of the most endearing films in cinematic history.

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