John Lithgow’s Broadway drama Giant is headed to movie theatres on Nov. 19, 2026, in a filmed live performance that will be screened in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and other international territories. Tickets for the cinema release will go on sale July 9, 2026.
The screenings will bring audiences a live performance captured during the play’s London West End run, even as the production is now playing at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. Lithgow stars as children’s book author Roald Dahl, with Aya Cash as U.S. publisher Jessie Stone, Elliot Levey as Dahl’s Jewish publisher Tom Maschler, Rachael Stirling as Felicity Crosland, Tessa Bonham Jones as Hallie and Richard Hope as Wally.
The film release lands at a moment when Giant has become one of the season’s most watched stage titles. The Broadway production is a 2026 Tony nominee for Best Play, while Lithgow is up for Leading Actor, Cash for Featured Actress and Nicholas Hytner for Direction. In London, the play won three 2025 Olivier Awards, including Best New Play, Lead Actor for Lithgow and Supporting Actor for Levey.
Producers Brian and Dayna Lee, Stephanie Kramer and Nicole Kramer, Josh Fiedler and Robyn Goodman, along with the Royal Court Theatre, are mounting the cinema release in partnership with Trafalgar Releasing. Mark Rosenblatt said Giant was his first play and said he never imagined it would travel from the Royal Court to the West End and then Broadway, calling the prospect of a close-up cinema version “giddy-makingly astounding.”
Lithgow said he has rarely felt the kind of audience response he gets night after night with the play, adding that Rosenblatt has written a work of extraordinary intelligence and humanity. He said the filmed version would allow more people to experience what he called the urgency, impact and emotional force of the story.
The release arrives amid renewed attention on Roald Dahl’s work and the prejudice embedded in many of his stories. In 2023, hundreds of words in Dahl’s books were altered or removed from future printings to strip out references to race, skin color, ethnicity, gender, disabilities and more, a reminder that the playwright’s subject is still tied to a live cultural argument. Giant answers that debate from the stage, and the new cinema rollout now gives it a larger audience before the Broadway run has even finished its own awards-season push.
