The Big Friendly Giant is coming to the big screen. Steven Spielberg will direct a live adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic book The BFG about a little girl and a friendly giant trying to stop his friends from eating children. If you had any doubt that Spielberg could bring sympathy to a mythical creature, he’ll be pairing up with E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison again.
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This is awesome! The BFG is one of my top three Roald Dahl books of all time, and this announcement brings me back to when I was in kindergarten while my family and I were stationed in the UK. I don’t remember all the details due to my being 5 or 6 at the time, but the stage adaption was amazing, especially for an impressionable, joyfully naive little kid. It was complete with a robotic giant that really didn’t do much except raise an arm or turn his head, but I swear it was the coolest thing on earth at the time. I remember thinking the giant was real and wanting to have a conversation with it (about what, I don’t know), but…