‘Willy Wonka’ Movie Confirmed As A Prequel To ‘Charlie & The Chocolate Factory’
The new Willy Wonka film, which producer David Heyman has confirmed is in the works, is set to provide a background story to the master chocolatier, according to Comic Book.
This newest installment will not be a continuation of the story, but will rather look back on Wonka’s past and how he got to where he was before the golden tickets swept the globe up in a frenzy. Even as Heyman confirmed the timeline of the story, he was quick to caution that there has been no date set for its release as yet, or even for filming to start.
“We are still trying to figure out how to tell that story, what the story is. It’s a prequel, it’s not a sequel,” Heyman revealed. “What makes Willy—when we find him at the chocolate factory doing the golden ticket, where is he before that? What leads him to that place where he’s locked himself away? It’s how does he get there? So we’re playing around with that.”
Heyman, who was speaking about the upcoming project while on a press tour for the second installment of Fantastic Beasts, added that he hopes director Paul King will be part of the film. King is about to start production on Disney’s Pinocchio, which means fans could be waiting a while for Wonka to make a reappearance.
The #WillyWonka movie will be a prequel!
Producer David Heyman confirmed this to @Collider, and that he "hopes" Paul King will direct!https://t.co/o4r0JeLUhk pic.twitter.com/eY5J04tKeo
— Friends and Film (@FriendsAndFilm) November 5, 2018
A couple months ago when whispers of the movie first surfaced, three top Hollywood names were touted to possibly take the lead role: Ryan Gosling, Donald Glover, and Ezra Miller. At the time, Heyman did toy openly with the idea that the film could potentially be an origin story and confirmed it certainly wouldn’t be another remake.
“It’s not a remake. They’ve done two films, quite different. But it’s possibly an origin story. We’re just in the early stages of it, working with a writer called Simon Rich, which is wonderful,” Heyman reflected.
The producer also had some high praise for the creator of the much-loved character and added that that reputation carried plenty of weight for him in creating a new movie.
“It’s challenging because you don’t have Dahl, you don’t have a Dahl book, and yet you have a Dahl character. But I think there’s a lot in his character that suggests who he is and also where he might come from or what his childhood or his middle age might have been like. So we’re exploring that. We’re discussing it. We’re in the very early stages and very excited about what lies ahead.”
With the amount of work that still needs to go into this new film, fans will probably have to wait a year or two to drool over Wonka’s delicious confections again in a totally new story.
