Tom Hanks' Mister Rogers Movie Gets An Official Title

Sony has decided that their upcoming Tom Hanks-led Mister Rogers film will be titled A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

The film, which was originally titled You Are My Friend, recently released a first-look image of Hanks in wardrobe as the iconic children's TV host.

The movie will focus on the period toward the end of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood run on PBS, when journalist Tim Junod reluctantly takes an assignment to profile Rogers. The story actually was published in 1998 in Esquire under the title "Can You Say... Hero?" Junod has previously spoken about how the profile developed into a friendship with Rogers, and how it helped changed his perspective on life.

As an interesting side note, 2002 saw the release of a comic called Superman: Day of Doom, in which a jaded Daily Planet journalist had a similarly transformative encounter with the Man of Steel while writing about the tenth anniversary of his death.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood comes in the wake of the popular and critically acclaimed documentary about Fred Rogers, the Sundance selected film called Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Mister Rogers' legacy has been celebrated recently, including in a recent Google Doodle which recognized the beginning of production on the very first episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Google helped create a stop-motion video honoring the show.

Public Broadcasting Service continues to uphold the legacy of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood with the long-running animated series Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. The series is set in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, which Mister Rogers would visit regularly on his series and interact with hand puppet characters.

There has been a lot of attention directed at A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, both positive (centering on Rogers and the affection that the world still has for the late entertainer), and tragic. In October, a member of the film's crew passed away following a fall on set.

The country is riding a wave of nostalgia for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, as evidenced by the popular documentary capturing Fred Rogers' sincerity and success in children's television programming.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is currently scheduled to be released in theaters on October 18, 2019. We'll likely see more details about the upcoming film as we get closer to the release date.