Production has commenced on the highly anticipated Mary Poppins Returns and Walt Disney Studios have finally revealed some exciting plot details.

Filming is currently underway at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England and the musical is scheduled for release on December 25, 2018.

Emily BluntEmily Blunt stars in Mary Poppins Returns

 Rob Marshall, who helmed the Oscar winning Chicago and 2015’s Into the Woods will direct, with David Magee having written the screenplay based on The Mary Poppins Stories by author PL Travers.

The cast is lead by Emily Blunt, who will take on the role made famous by Julie Andrews in the original 1964 film. Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer will play Michael and Jane, the two Banks children who are now all grown up.

Meryl Streep will play Topsy, described as Poppins’ ‘eccentric cousin’, with Lin Manuel-Miranda as Jack, an ‘optimistic street lamplighter’. Julie Walters will play Michael’s housekeeper Ellen, and Colin Firth is William Weatherall Wilkins, the man who runs Fidelity Fiduciary Bank.

The film will also star newcomers Pixie Davies, Joel Dawson and Nathanael Saleh, as Michael Banks’ three children. But in perhaps the most exciting piece of casting news, Dick Van Dyke has been confirmed as taking the role of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank’s chairman, Mr. Dawes Jr.

More: Colin Firth In Talks To Join 'Mary Poppins Returns' Cast

The plot, revealed by the studio in a press release, states that the film will be set in 1930s depression-era London and is based on PL Travers’ additional seven books. The film begins with Michael and Jane now all grown up and Michael living on Cherry Tree Lane with his three children and their housekeeper, Ellen.

But after Michael suffers a personal loss, Mary Poppins will re-enter the lives of Banks family. Poppins, along with street lamplighter Jack, will use her ‘unique magical skills to help the family rediscover the joy and wonder missing in their lives,’ while also introducing Michael’s children to ‘a new assortment of colourful and whimsical characters, including her eccentric cousin Topsy’.