| James and the Giant Peach | |
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 Film poster |
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| Directed by | Henry Selick |
| Produced by | Tim Burton Denise Di Novi |
| Written by | Steven Bloom Karey Kirkpatrick Jonathan Roberts Roald Dahl (Novel) |
| Narrated by | Pete Postlethwaite |
| Starring | Paul Terry Simon Callow Richard Dreyfuss Susan Sarandon Jane Leeves Miriam Margolyes David Thewlis Joanna Lumley |
| Music by | Randy Newman |
| Cinematography | Pete Kozachik Hiro Narita |
| Editing by | Stan Webb |
| Studio | Walt Disney Pictures Allied Filmmakers Skellington Productions |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Guild Film Distribution |
| Release date(s) | April 12, 1996 (United States) August 2, 1996 (United Kingdom) |
| Running time | 76 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $38 million |
| Gross revenue | Domestic $28,946,127 |
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. It was produced by Tim Burton, who also had written and produced the film The Nightmare Before Christmas, another Disney project. The film is a combination of live action and stop-motion.
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James Henry Trotter finds himself living with his two abusive aunts, Spiker and Sponge, after his parents are "eaten by a rhino that appears out of nowhere." Life with his aunts is hard and he dreams of a better place, specifically New York City, a "dream like" place his parents had talked about. His dream comes true when a mysterious stranger appears with a bagful of magic green "crocodile tongues" which are supposed to make his life better. When James is returning to Sponge and Spiker's house, he trips and the "tongues" fall into the root of an old peach tree, affecting it and its inhabitants in amazing ways. One peach is soon found on the tree, and it grows to immense proportions. James ventures into the giant fruit were he finds and befriends a group of anthropomorphic insects (who are all much larger than his small petite frame) who also dream of an ideal home (Mr. Old Green Grasshopper, Mr. Centipede, Mr. Earthworm, Miss Spider, Mrs. Ladybug, Silkworm and Glowworm). Mr. Centipede manages to cut the twig holding the giant peach to the tree, and the peach rolls away to the Atlantic ocean with James and his friends inside it. They use Miss Spider's and Silkworm's silk to tie a hundred seagulls to the peach stem, allowing them to fly their way to New York City while going through a series of adventures such as facing a giant robotic shark, skeletal pirates in an old frozen galleon, and the rhino which is riding with the clouds. The group finally gets to New York City, where James stands up to his aunts and learns to face his fears.
The film begins with normal live-action for the first twenty minutes,[1] but becomes stop-motion animation after James enters the peach, and then live-action when James enters New York City, New York (although the mutated insect characters remained in stop-motion). Selick had originally planned for James to be a real actor through the entire film, then later considered doing the whole film in stop-motion, but ultimately settled on doing entirely live-action and entirely stop-motion sequences due to costs.[2] Unlike in the novel, James' aunts are not killed by the rolling peach (although his parents' deaths takes place as in the novel), and the film also has James dream of going to New York instead of simply winding up there.[1]
Although Dahl turned down more than one offer to make an animated film of James and the Giant Peach during his lifetime, his widow, Liccy Dahl, consented to let this film be made.[3] She said that, "I think Roald would have been delighted with what they did with James."[3] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review, praising the animated part, but calling the live-action segments "crude."[4]
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Best Original Musical or Comedy Score (by Randy Newman). It won Best Animated Feature Film at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
A trailer has surfaced online in January 2010 promoting the upcoming release of the special edition Blu-ray of Henry Selick's animated movie 'James and the Giant Peach'. No other release details are given, other than the movie will be "restored and remastered".
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James and the Giant Peach is a 1996 Disney animated movie.
Based on Roald Dahl's novel of the same name, the movie is about a boy named James.
   | Roald Dahl: From Page to Screen - Close-Up Film Features |
| | Layers: A Look at Henry Selick - Layers: A Look at Henry Selick |
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