Saving Mr Banks To Close The 2013 BFI London Film Festival

Fans of Tom Hanks will now have 2 reasons to attend The 57^th BFI London Film Festival in October , with Captain Phillips opening the festival, his following film Saving Mr Banks has been confirmed to close the festival.

Both films based on real life characters and their intriguing stories as well as both European Premiers.Disney’s  Saving Mr Banks tells the tale of how Mary Poppins the extraordinary untold story of the struggle, the emotion to bring the now classic Disney film to the big screen. Hanks plays Walt Disney with Emma Thomson playing P.L Travers the author of the book the film is adapted from, this film portrays her unhappiness of the final film. It also highlights her   unwillingness to give up what was a personal heartfelt story based on her relationship with her father (Colin Farrell).

Clare Stewart, BFI Head of Exhibition and Festival Director says: “There is only one word that gives full expression to the inventiveness and creativity of the film that will be our Closing Night Gala for the 57^th BFI London Film Festival – SAVING MR. BANKS is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Positively overflowing with its ebullient love of storytelling and the filmmaking process, SAVING MR. BANKS is also a magical ode to the brilliance and volatility of the two very different creative forces behind the making of Mary Poppins, with Emma Thompson superb as the protective author P.L. Travers and Tom Hanks in charming form as Walt Disney.”

Producer Alison Owen adds: “SAVING MR. BANKS is very much about British manners versus American values, as Pamela Travers and Walt Disney battle over the rights to Mary Poppins, so it feels absolutely fitting that the LFF Closing Night should be our European Premiere, and we feel very honoured. We hope Pamela Travers would approve wholeheartedly. We filmed the London sequences in the street where Pamela lived, and London was both the start of the journey for Mary Poppins and for our movie, so we feel like we’re beginning in the right place.”

From the early buzz from Saving Mr Banks this is the film which will be one of the most eagerly waited, Captain Phillips does also have a strong early buzz about it as well. Fantastic cast B.J. Novak, Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman, Paul Giamatti, and Ruth Wilson which could potential see Tom Hanks in Oscar contention possibly for both films!

The 57^th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express runs from Wednesday 9 October-Sunday 20 October. Saving Mr Banks does not have an exact confirmed UK release date but we believe the film maybe released sometime January 2014.

There’s no official UK trailer yet either however we do have the American version which you can check out here….