James and the Giant Peach is a 1996 musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl.

Released on April 12, 1996 in the United States, the film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its story and visual aspects.

In the summer of 1948, English boy James Henry Trotter is a young orphan living with his sadistic and domineering aunts Spiker and Sponge after his parents were "eaten alive" by a rhinoceros.

One day, after rescuing a spider from his hysterical aunts, James obtains magic "crocodile tongues" from a mysterious old man, which have the power to grow anything they come into contact with to colossal size.

At Walt Disney Animation Studios in the early 1980s, Joe Ranft tried to convince the staff to produce a film based on Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach (1961), a book that enamored him with its "liberating" material ever since he first read it in third grade.

[5] However, Disney refused for reasons of a potentially expensive and difficult animation process and the source material's weird subject matter.

[5] Felicity Dahl, Roald's widow and executor of his estate, began offering film rights to the book in the summer in 1992; among those interested included Steven Spielberg and Danny DeVito.

[9] Brian Rosen was hired as producer by Disney for his experience in animated projects like FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) and live-action films such as Mushrooms (1995).

Disney released the film worldwide except for a few countries in Europe including the United Kingdom, where Pathé (the owner of co-producer Allied Filmmakers) handled distribution and sold the rights to independent companies.

A digitally restored Blu-ray/DVD combo pack was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on August 3, 2010, in the United States.

The website's critical consensus states: "The arresting and dynamic visuals, offbeat details and light-as-air storytelling make James and the Giant Peach solid family entertainment.

[27] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review, praising the animated part, but calling the live-action segments "crude".

In August 2016, Sam Mendes was revealed to be in negotiations with Disney to direct another live action adaptation of the novel,[31] with Nick Hornby in talks for the script.

[32] In May 2017, however, Mendes was no longer attached to the project due to his entering talks with Disney about directing a live-action film adaptation of Pinocchio, which he would also drop out on with Robert Zemeckis taking his place.