Mary Poppins in 2004, Walt Disney first attempted to purchase the film rights to "Mary Poppins" from P. L. Travers as early as 1938, but was rebuffed because Travers did not believe a film version of her books would do justice to her creation and did not want an animated cartoon based on it. The books had been a favourite of Disney's daughters when they were children, and he finally succeeded in purchasing the rights in 1961, although Travers demanded and got script approval rights. The relationship between Travers and Disney is detailed in "Mary Poppins She Wrote", a biography of Travers,
Mary Poppins (film) two years. Travers was an adviser to the production. However, she disapproved of the dilution of the harsher aspects of Mary Poppins' character, felt ambivalent about the music, and so hated the use of animation that she ruled out any further adaptations of the later "Mary Poppins" novels. She objected to a number of elements that actually made it into the film. Rather than original songs, she wanted the soundtrack to feature known standards of the Edwardian period in which the story is set. Disney overruled her, citing contract stipulations that he had final say on the finished print. Much