Creative Work attributes
The BFG (titled onscreen as Roald Dahl's The BFG) is a 2016 fantasy adventure film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and based on Roald Dahl's 1982 novel of the same name. The film stars Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement, Rebecca Hall, Rafe Spall and Bill Hader. In the film, a 10-year-old orphaned girl named Sophie befriends a benevolent giant dubbed the "Big Friendly Giant", who takes her to Giant Country, where they attempt to stop the man-eating giants that are invading the human world.
Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall began development on a live-action adaptation of The BFG back in the 1990s, and various screenwriters were hired to work on the screenplay in the subsequent years. DreamWorks acquired the screen rights to Dahl's book in September 2011, and Marshall and Sam Mercer joined as producers, Mathison as screenwriter and Kennedy as executive producer. Spielberg was announced as director in April 2014, alongside his production company Amblin Entertainment as co-producer. Principal photography commenced in March 2015, marking Spielberg's first directorial film for Walt Disney Pictures, which co-financed the film.
The BFG premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2016, and held its North American debut at the El Capitan Theater on June 21, 2016. The film was released in the United States in Disney Digital 3D, RealD 3D, IMAX 3D, and conventional theatrical formats on July 1, 2016, the same year of Dahl's centennial. Despite receiving generally positive reviews from critics, the film was a box office bomb, grossing $195 million against its $140 million budget.[