Useless fact about the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: It was comissioned by the Quaker Oats Company to promote a new Wonka chocolate bar. Even though the bar never got made, the movie did. Quaker later sold the rights of the film to Warner Bros. as they had no use for it.
When I first heard about this movie (I was reading about the production company that Brad Pitt and Jenniffer Aniston are forming and apparently this is to be its product) I cringed-but then I thought about how Depp can just about do anything he damn well pleases when it comes to roles. If he’s lined up with the right cast, it’ll be good I think. That and the Tim Burton thing that’s been addressed.
Although I do remember seeing some Cap’n Crunch commercials where he was plugging the movie along with his cereal.
As for the chocolate bar, a line of Wonka candy did eventually come out, but I believe it was after the movie had ended its theatrical run. You can still find Wonka candy (e.g., Nerds and Laffy Taffy) on the shelf today in the U.S.
As for the OP, like any remake of a movie that was a big part of my childhood, I’ve got mixed feelings about it. I generally like Burton’s movies (Mars Attacks excepted) but I wish he would stick with more original fare and Depp is a sufficiently off-beat actor to play Wonka (although my choice wouldve been Bill Murray just because I’d like to see his take on the role). However, what I’m really curious about is who’ll they’ll get to write the script.
BTW, I hope they get Gene Wilder to play Charlie’s grandfather and John Cleese to play Veruca’s father.
These are manufactured by Nestlé, long after Quaker abandoned the rights to the film.
Because it stands a reasonable chance of making a profit.
That’s all you need to know, really. All other considerations are decidedly secondary.
We can hope it’s good, and that it stands as an interesting and valuable cinematic contrast to the previous film, but that’s not why it’s being made. Not from the corporate standpoint, anyway. And whatever motivations Burton may have as a filmmaker, he’s smart enough to submerge them in favor of the corporate agenda, in order to preserve his ability to continue working. Witness Planet of the Apes.
As somebody once said, Follow the money.
The original movie was released in 1971, and Wilder was born in 1935, so he was about 35!
I saw Christopher Walken live on Broadway in a delightful musical adaptation of Joyce’s THE DEAD. Here’s a review of the off-Broadway production that moved for a short-lived run on Broadway in 2000.
Well, it was indeed delightful except for his singing. You do not want this guy to star in a musical. Trust me. His wistful song about “snow falling generally all over Ireland” became a dirge. Next to Brown and Nixon and Spinella*, it was painfully apparent his singing voice wasn’t up to it. Not that he was absolutely horrible or off-key, just very inadequate.
- Hey, I just saw Stephen Spinella again on Sunday, playing a major role brilliantly in TRAVESTIES by Tom Stoppard up at the Williamstown Theater Festival. His role?
The other guy in the picture, David Garrison, also has the mischeviousness, wit, warmth, and singing voice to carry off Wonka, but he like Spinella is not enough of a “name” to be thought of. A pity. Broadway is full of guys who would make wonderful Wonkas.
I’d like to to see the original actors who played the kids in the flick, at least in bit parts. IIRC, the kid who played Charlie quit the biz after this one role and became a vet.
I know, I almost opened a pit thread about these people. “I don’t want to see this movie, so I wish it doesn’t get made! If I don’t want to see it, then nobody should be able to see it!”
Manson would be great in the role! Did you see Andy Dick on his MTV Andy Dick Show do Marylin Manson in “Marylin Poppins,”? The skit premise is that Manson is going to play a broadway remake of Mary Poppins. Andy had Manson dressed in gothic Victorian punk complete with tattered umbrella and black stove pipe top hat. He looked like the children snatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and when he first appears ‘onstage’ he says, “I smell children.” Hilarious.
Now, that’s a dark Wonka.
Peace.
Except, of course, in the case of “reimagining” (or whatever the hell Lucas calls it) where the original copies aren’t available. Additionally, folks who see a crappy remake of a great film, might not realize that the original film was fanatastic and won’t watch it.
If you’re going to say that it’s okay for someone to do a crappy remake of a great film, then you might as well say that colorization of black and white movies is okay. Nevermind that the halfwits doing the colorization have no understanding of how the director may have been using the absence of color in his film. And they might just get some things flat out wrong. (As Turner did when they gave Frank Sinatra brown eyes.)
Frankly, I’m not optimistic of Burton’s chances of getting this right. It wouldn’t make a rat’s ass who he has in the cast, if he’s determined to screw the pooch, he’ll bang it six ways from Sunday. Remember, Planet of the Apes had Helena Bonham Carter in it, and it blew dinos.
AKA Mrs. Tim Burton (or at least aka Tim Burton’s baby’s mama). They recently wrapped on a movie filmed in Montgomery, AL, where I spend a lot of time and I couldn’t believe how tiny she is in real life. (I also couldn’t believe going into my favorite restaurant, which is far from chic, and seeing the Burtons, Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Robert Guillaume, and a smattering of their women taking up a long table in the corner.)
David Garrison was also great in TITANIC. I think leaving Married With Children helped both his career and the show, though I’ll always remember him best for IT’S YOUR MOVE (if only for “The Dregs of Humanity”).
I honestly think that Depp could pull off a remake playing the Hepburn role in SUMMERTIME, but I just really don’t see the point in this one. Maybe it’ll finally at least answer why those old people won’t get up off their wrinkled bums and help out rather than letting Charlie’s mom get callouses on her knees from all that work, though.
That’s hardly the same thing.
How many of these folks would ever have seen the original film at all? And how many people who saw (and even disliked) the remake have sought out the original to see why someone thought it was worth remaking?
Colorization? Sure, why not? My TV has tint control: I can watch any movie I want in black and white. But, again, this has nothing to do with re-making a movie.
I submit that, on the scale of cinematic catastrophes, mis-coloring Frank Sinatra’s eyes pales in comparison to casting Frank Sinatra in a movie in the first place.
Neither am I. Burton’s been sadly off his game for a while now. But if he remakes Charlie etc., and it sucks horribly, you know what? No one’s even going to remember it in five years. When I say Psycho, who do you think of? Alfred Hitchcock or Gus van Sant?
OK, actually, I don’t like re-makes of already good movies. Wilder and the original cast were GREAT in the original. At first blush, I didn’t think that Depp would be good in the role of Willie Wonka. But after seeing the way he got into Jack Sparrow in POTC, I would say that he would be good. He would get it to j…u…s…t… about that over the top thing like Wilder did and then make it kind of endearing to us. More so to the younger folk.
Comments:
Gene Wilder MUST make a cameo in the movie.
If Christopher Walken is in it, he MUST play the bad guy that’s tells the kids that he will pay them for Wonka’s recipe.
The boat scene had better be just as damn scary, but not tooooo scary.
Veruca Salt --> BAND NAME!!! Oh, wait…
Oh, and the MOST obvious conclusion that I came to:
Burton + Depp = Elfman doing the score.
Tell me I’m wrong, go ahead, tell me.
Gene Wilder should be Grandpa. I’m sure Verne Troyer has already been hired for an Oompah slot (unless they’re going with CGI).
Hijack, but I would love to see Gene Wilder on B’way play Max Bialystok in THE PRODUCERS. Pay him whatever he asks for and I guarantee they’d make it back.
Christopher Walken as Wonka? :eek: :eek: :eek:
Y’all’re gonna give me nightmares!
pleasebewalken pleasebewalken pleasebewalken
“If the good LORD- hadintendedusto WA-ALK, he wouldn’t have. Invented RollerSKATES.”
Well, duh. I can only think of one Burton film (Ed Wood) that Elfman didn’t score.
Still, it might be fun if it’s a musical again. I’ve been disappointed by Elfman’s last few Burton movie scores… I’d love to hear the old magic again.