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 is the youngest and is born midway through the second book. Though the ages of the children are never made explicit, Jane is estimated to be around seven years old in "Mary Poppins", and John and Barbara have their first birthday in the same book and appear to be around two years old when Annabel is born. Only Jane and Michael appear in the film and stage musical. In the film they are portrayed by Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber; in the 2018 sequel, they are portrayed by Emily Mortimer and Ben Whishaw. George Banks is Mary Poppins's employer. He