Tom Hanks As Walt Disney In First Official Photo From "Saving Mr. Banks"

I feel like Tom Hanks has fallen off the face of the earth lately. I might be wrong, but this guy is a long way removed from Forest Gump. It's nice to see him starring in a possible Oscar Bait movie with the always solid Emma Thompson.

I personally would have never cast the prolific actor as Walt Disney but based on the below photo from Saving Mr. Banks he certainly looks the part and we know the guy can act.

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.

TIME