BFG: Disney releases teaser trailer for 'Harry Potter-esque' film

Disney has released the first teaser trailer for the new BFG film, due to appear in cinemas in July 2016 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Roald Dahl's birth.

The film adaptation of Dahl's much-loved story has director Steven Spielberg at the helm, with actor Mark Rylance playing the 24ft giant.

The new teaser focuses on the beginning of the film, with viewers given an insight into the home of the main character Sophie, a precocious ten-year-old orphan, played by newcomer Ruby Barnhill.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Although the trailer doesn't give much away about the BFG himself, it's clear Rylance's 5ft 8 in stature will be enhanced by CGI.

Critics have praised the teaser's dark tone: "The Harry Potter-esque theme music suggests that Disney is trying to appeal to fans of that other story about a British orphan swept into a fantastical world," says LV Anderson at Slate.

KM McFarland at Wired says: "Pause at 1:21 for the creepiest shot of the trailer, the kind of tense moment that Spielberg has excelled at creating his entire career."

Angie Han at Slash Film says it "breaks new ground" for Spielberg. "It's his first live-action 3D movie and his first Disney movie too," she says. "It's got more of a Hook vibe than anything we've seen from Spielberg since, well, Hook."

However, some critics lamented the lack of obvious humour in the trailer. "What this teaser is missing is the book's skewed sense of humour," complained Matt Wayt at AV Club. "The book has a lot of fun lampooning normalcy via scenarios where villains are chased away by the taste of vegetables and the Queen's staff struggles to create a table setting for an oversized person."

Nevertheless, fans on Twitter were overwhelmingly positive:

The BFG film: Mark Rylance to star as 'nice and jumbly giant'

28 October

Stage star Mark Rylance has been cast as The BFG for Steven Spielberg's film adaptation of the much-loved children's book.

The film will retell Roald Dahl's 1982 story of the Big Friendly Giant who teams up with a young girl called Sophie to stop his less affable fellow giants from devouring England's children.

"As I witnessed on stage, Mark Rylance is a transformational actor," Spielberg told Variety. "I am excited and thrilled that Mark will be making this journey with us to Giant Country. Everything about his career so far is about making the courageous choice and I'm honoured he has chosen The BFG as his next big screen performance."

Dahl's grandson Luke Kelly, who is the managing director of the Roald Dahl Literary Estate, said he was "ecstatic" at the choice.

"I've had the privilege of seeing Mark perform, and the thought of watching him transform into 'the only nice and jumbly giant in Giant Country' is, as The BFG himself might say, absolutely phizz-whizzing," he told Hollywood Reporter.

It remains to be seen whether Spielberg will use prosthetics or CGI to turn 5ft 8in Rylance into the 24ft giant with super hearing abilities, whose occupation is to distribute good dreams to children. The character of "human bean" Sophie, named after Dahl's granddaughter, is also yet to be cast.

Rylance, who has won three Tony Awards and two Oliviers, is due to play the lead role of Thomas Cromwell in the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall and is working with Spielberg and Tom Hanks on an untitled Cold War spy thriller. He was also artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe for many years.

Dahl's book was first brought to life on screen in 1989 with an ITV animated adaptation starring Only Fools and Horses actor David Jason as The BFG.

DreamWorks acquired movie rights to the book four years ago and Melissa Mathison, who worked with Spielberg on ET, has written the screenplay.

The BFG will open in the UK in July 2016 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Roald Dahl's birth.