It's been a long journey for Roald Dahl's The BFG to get to the big screen. The story of an orphan named Sophie who has an unlikely encounter with a big friendly giant arrives this weekend in a lovely and wondrous adaptation of the novel directed by Steven Spielberg. But the book was first published in 1982 when that filmmaker was changing cinema history with the story of a boy named Elliot who helped an alien get back to his planet.

Back then the director of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind was familiar with Dahl's story of the special friendship between a British orphan and a giant as a story that he read to his children before going to sleep. It wasn't until three decades later, when he took a screenplay adaptation of the book by Melissa Mathison, the woman who wrote E.T the Extraterrestrial. "I would have to say it was kismet, because I was on vacation with my family and had taken a bunch of scripts that my company was producing to read. Melissa's was one of them," recalled the director during a round table interview to promote the film. "But the minute I read it, I felt it in my bones. I deeply feel this story. I know I can do a good job with it and tell this story.  And I said so the minute I finished reading it. When I told my wife and the rest of our guest that this was going to be my next movie, they all looked at me like I was crazy," assured Spielberg with a hearty laugh.

Spielberg's passion for Mathison's adaptation of The BFG might have been immediate, but it was a second collaboration that took more than thirty years to happen. And while the film is a fantastically splendid family entertainment that fits perfectly with the rest of Spielberg's filmography, the director had not worked in this particular genre since Hook disappointed at the box office in 1991. For a generation of film geeks that were raised on Spielberg's Amblin Films this is a welcome return to the type of family fare that shaped our childhoods.

But the director, who had been keeping busy with acclaimed historical dramas like Munich, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies, has not been keeping track of time. "I don't make movies with a calendar," said Spielberg. "I haven't made a movie like this in years. But it just depends on how the material strikes me. There are certain things that hit me really hard but I wind up producing them or buying them for DreamWorks to make. And then there are other movies that clobber me and leave me semiconscious and those are the movies that I wind up directing. And I can't tell you how that occurs. There is no series of markers that I can recognize that lead me to say yes as a director.  It's always been that way."

With this particular story, the director does admit to being "passionate about putting on the screen a movie that captures what a conversation is. In this one is a conversation between two creatures from very different worlds. But they connect and listen to each other even though that they have different point of views. That is something that doesn't seem to be happening that much anymore in the world," assured Spielberg who also admits to being delighted that The BFG is his first Disney film. "I had directed for all the studios but not Disney and he was someone who literally shaped my childhood with dreams and nightmares. And I loved every second of it as a kid."

For the director it was not just about doing a movie that had the Disney logo at the beginning. To Spielberg, The BFG presented the opportunity of connecting with and expanding the filmmaking legacy of Walt Disney. "One of the things that attracted me to this story was the true grit of the character of Sophie and the fact that she could stare down a twenty five foot giant, who she doesn't even know how dangerous he might be. She's kind of fearless. And the strength of having a female character like that is something that I first encountered in the Disney films that I saw as a kid and something that became part of the legacy of his animated films," said the filmmaker in clear admiration of his most recent protagonist.

While making a movie that brings to life a world where a little girl can become a friend with a giant provided all sorts of technical challenges for the director, his main cast members where more in awe getting the opportunity to watch him get another marvelous performance from a child actor in a leading role. "A Steven Spielberg set is exactly what you would expect it to be," says Penelope Wilton who has gone from managing British social mores in Downton Abbey to playing the Queen of England in The BFG. "I loved working with Steven, he is just the best. He's everything that a great director should be. Gives very straight forward notes. Tells you when it's wrong and tells you when it's right. And you are never lost. But watching apply all that craft while getting a marvelous performance from Ruby (Barnhill). The creativity of how he constantly kept her engaged was astounding."

Mark Rylance, who this year won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in Spielberg's Bridge of Spies, agrees. "Having worked with Steven before it's not surprising that he is someone who is completely immersed in the story and the characters. But this time around it was truly gratifying to get to watch a filmmaker of his stature face all sorts of technical challenges and still be able to get a wonderful performance from a child actor, which is at what I think he truly excels at."

For Ruby Barnhill, who was 10 years old when she got the lead role in The BFG, the key to Spielberg's direction is "that he never talked down to me. He never forgot that I was 10 and making a movie. But he was never condescending, which is really annoying when somebody does that. But he never did.  I've been acting since I was really young, but I never really learned about concentration that's requires with acting until working with Steven and Mark."

With a proper Sophie and a spectacular visual canvas, now all that is left for The BFG's journey to the big screen is to see if Spielberg's take on Dahl's story can catch  the attention of audiences that this summer have been inundated with sequels and remakes. Even so, one of the most successful filmmakers of our time does not seem all that interested in that part of the process of releasing a movie "because after all these years of making them I know that it's not something I can control. There are times when audiences don't seem to hear what I have to say (with a film) and others where they seem to hear me perfectly well. I've never been able to predict when that will happen. All I know is that is that I did the best I could and The BFG is the movie that best represents who I am as a director in 2016."

Disney's The BFG comes to theaters July 1, 2016.