Though he was nominally billed as its screenwriter, his original adaptation was scarcely detectable beneath all manner of uncredited rewrites, and he was vocal in his disdain for the result, Wilder and all. Few films as spotty have attained cherished classic status on the strength of a single performance on the flipside, it’s Johnny Depp’s off-puttingly fey, chilly spin on Wonka that has largely sunk the reputation of the 2005 remake by comparison, even though Burton’s film handily trumps Stuart’s for cinematic verve and vibrancy.ĭahl himself would be exasperated over the 1971 film’s endurance. Half a century later, its legacy rests on Gene Wilder’s droll, eerily underplayed interpretation of Wonka, a sinister-sweet antihero who has haunted as many dreams as he has launched memes much of the film around him is mechanical and twee by comparison, but you don’t remember those parts, so it hardly matters. It was Mel Stuart’s 1971 film that stated this most bluntly, changing the title of Dahl’s beloved book to make Wonka the eponymous character. It’s Wonka, the strangely sadistic man-child magician and devil-may-care capitalist, that people and producers can’t get enough of, and who can blame them? Wonka is weird and dry and inscrutable Charlie is blandly selfless and inoffensive. Nobody’s ever expressed interest in Charlie-driven film spinoffs, while Dahl’s own sequel, 1972’s Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, has remained unfilmed.
WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY FULL
But that was then, back when Chalamet was still in short trousers: in Hollywood time, that IP has practically crystallised with age by now.Īfter all, this week marks a full 50 years since the first big-screen stab at Dahl’s 1964 bestseller was released, making Wonka an enduring figure of fascination for generations of children, while the ostensible hero of Dahl’s story – wholesome 11-year-old poppet Charlie Bucket – faded in his top-hatted shadow. Sure, Tim Burton and screenwriter John August attempted to forge a Wonka backstory – a whole lot of daddy issues, naturally – in 2005’s lavish but little-treasured Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and nobody much cared for it.
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