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 and Denise Di Novi, and starred Paul Terry as James. The film is a combination of live action and stop-motion animation. Co-stars Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margolyes played James's aunts in the live-action segments, and Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon, Jane Leeves, David Thewlis, and Margolyes voiced his insect friends in the animation sequences. Released on April 12, 1996, in the United States, the film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its story and visual aspects. Plot In summer 1948, James Henry Trotter is a young orphan living with his sadistic and domineering aunts Spiker and Sponge after his parents were eaten by a ghost rhinoceros on his birthday. One day, after rescuing a spider from his hysterical aunts, James obtains magical "crocodile tongues" from a mysterious old man, which grows a colossal peach on nearby old peach tree that Spiker and Sponge exploit as a tourist attraction. At night, James eats through the peach to find a pit with several human-sized anthropomorphic invertebrates: Mr. Grasshopper, Mr. Centipede, Ms. Spider (who was actually the spider he saved from Spiker and Sponge), Mr. Earthworm, Mrs. Ladybug, and Mrs. Glowworm. As they hear Spiker and Sponge searching for James, Centipede cuts the stem connecting the peach to the tree and the peach rolls away to the Atlantic Ocean. The invertebrates drive on the peach to New York City, as James has dreamed of visiting the Empire State Building like his parents wanted to. Obstacles include a giant mechanical shark and undead skeletal pirates in the icy waters of the Arctic. When the group arrive, they are suddenly attacked by the tempestuous form of the rhinoceros that killed James' parents. James, though frightened, gets his friends to safety and confronts the rhino before it strikes the peach with lightning. James and the peach fall to the city below, landing on top of the Empire State Building. After he is rescued by firefighters, Spiker and Sponge arrive and attempt to claim James and the peach. James tells the crowd of his fantastical adventure and exposes his aunts' mistreatment. Enraged at James' betrayal, Spiker and Sponge attempt to hack James with stolen fire axes, but are stopped by the