Spielberg’s Adaptation Of Roald Dahl’s ‘The BFG’: July 1, 2016

by Nur Hussein, staff writer

Roald Dahl fans and fellow human beans in general, if your excitement is barely contained over news of the Spielberg-directed live-action film adaptation of The BFG, you can now let out a whizzpopper of joy; We now have a release date! On July 1st 2016, a film version of Roald Dahl’s children’s classic will open in a theater near you.

The BFG is an incredibly imaginative tale of a Big Friendly Giant (BFG) who unwittingly befriends an orphan girl named Sophie. The BFG silently gifts pleasant dreams to sleeping boys and girls in the middle of the night, and lives in a land of giants, all of them terrible and monstrous except for him. The book was first published in 1982, and is a favorite with readers and Dahl himself is quite fond of it too.

In 1989, The BFG was made into an animated movie in the UK, produced and directed by Brian Cosgrove. It was shown on British TV on Christmas day in 1989, and had a subsequent home video release on VHS. In that film, Sir David Jason voiced the BFG. Now, Spielberg’s project is the first live-action attempt to bring the beloved children’s story to the big screen, and no cast names have been announced yet.

So the movie is being made, but will it be scrumdiddlyumptious like frobscottle or uckyslush like a snozzcumber? Well, we can’t tell till we see the finished product, but the creative team is comprised of Spielberg himself, producer Frank Marshall, and the incredibly talented screenwriter Melissa Mathison who did the screenplay for E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. I’m sure they’re crafting the film like The BFG would mix dreams in a jar.

The film release date is set to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Dahl’s birth. It looks like 2016 will be gloriumptious for fans of Dahl and Spielberg!

-30-

Nur Hussein

Nur is a tinkerer of programmable things, an apprentice in an ancient order of technomages. He enjoys fantasy, sci-fi, comic books, and Lego in his spare time. His favourite authors are Asimov and Tolkien. He also loves Celtic and American folk music. You can follow him on twitter: @nurhussein