The film stars Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement, Rebecca Hall, Rafe Spall, and Bill Hader.

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.

[8] The BFG premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2016, and held its North American debut at the El Capitan Theatre on June 21, 2016.

[9] The film was released in the United States in Disney Digital 3-D, RealD 3D, IMAX 3D,[10] and conventional theatrical formats on July 1, 2016, the same year of Dahl's centennial.

One night, Sophie, a smart and brave ten-year-old girl living in a London orphanage, catches sight of an elderly giant.

At a large breakfast, the BFG shares his favourite drink, flatulence-inducing "frobscottle", and he and Sophie lead the Queen's soldiers to Giant Country.

Sophie gets adopted by Mary, comes to live in the Queen's palace, and awakens from a dream of the BFG, who returns to his life in Giant Country and writes the story of their adventure.

Producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy began development on a live-action adaptation of The BFG in 1991, and set the project up at Paramount Pictures.

[24] While the screenplay lingered in development hell, Paramount subsequently lost the film rights and they reverted to the Dahl estate.

[24] In September 2011, DreamWorks[26] acquired the film rights to the book; Kennedy and Marshall were announced to produce, with screenwriter Melissa Mathison adapting the story.

It is also Disney's first feature-length adaptation of a Roald Dahl work since Henry Selick's James and the Giant Peach (1996).

[38] In mid-November 2014, it was revealed that a ten-year-old student of Lower Peover School, Ruby Barnhill, had auditioned for the film.

[19] On April 13, 2015, the rest of the cast was announced, which included Penelope Wilton, Rebecca Hall, Jemaine Clement, Michael David Adamthwaite, Daniel Bacon, Chris Gibbs, Adam Godley, Jonathan Holmes, Paul Moniz de Sa, and Ólafur Ólafsson.

[44] During the process of writing the score, Williams compared the film to "a child's ballet where there are dances involved," elaborating, "The BFG tries to capture dreams with his net and does something that almost looks like a Ray Bolger or Fred Astaire dance; it is an amazingly musical and choreographic sequence which required the orchestra to do things that are more associated with musical films.

"[45] Williams found similarities with the scoring of Home Alone, admitting that writing music for The BFG "was really an opportunity to compose and orchestrate a little children's fantasy for orchestra.

[53] The film held its North American premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on June 21, 2016.

[55] Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released The BFG on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download on November 29, 2016.

[6] It made $775,000 from its Thursday previews; however, the low figure was not surprising, given how family films tend to attract fewer audiences during late-night showings.

[62][63] Forbes noted that Steven Spielberg's films tend to have long runs, irrespective of their opening numbers.

While it benefitted from a robust marketing effort including Spielberg's presence in the country itself, it suffered from a three month long delay after its North American release.

The site's critical consensus reads, "The BFG minimizes the darker elements of Roald Dahl's classic in favor of a resolutely good-natured, visually stunning, and largely successful family-friendly adventure.

[75] Justin Chang of Los Angeles Times called Rylance's performance a "brilliant amalgam of performance-capture technology and peerless screen presence.

"[76] Scott Mendelson of Forbes described the film as "a charming, intelligent, and witty little adventure movie with strong special effects work in the service of a most unassuming story.

[77] Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph called the film "a significant technical accomplishment", adding that "the infinitesimally detailed motion-capture technology alone, which stretches Rylance’s human performance to gargantuan proportions, is river-straddling bounds beyond anything that’s come before it.

"[80] Peter Debruge of Variety, however, compared the film favorably to E.T., writing, "this splendid Steven Spielberg-directed adaptation makes it possible for audiences of all ages to wrap their heads around one of the unlikeliest friendships in cinema history, resulting in the sort of instant family classic “human beans” once relied upon Disney to deliver.

[82] Richard Brody of The New Yorker stating that it "plays like a forced march of fun, a mandatory strain of magic and a prescribed dose of poetry, like a movie ready-made for screening in classrooms when a teacher is absent."

"[83] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "technically impressive but listless and tedious... painfully cutesy, silly and gross rather than whimsical and funny."