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Timothée Chalamet cast as young Willy Wonka in upcoming film
American actor Timothée Chalamet will play the role of the iconic chocolate factory owner Willy Wonka in Warner Bros' latest adaptation of Roald Dahl’s story.
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Actor Timothée Chalamet poses at the 76th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Sept. 2, 2019. (REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw)
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merican actor Timothée Chalamet will play the role of the iconic chocolate factory owner Willy Wonka in Warner Bros' Wonka, the latest adaptation of Roald Dahl’s story.
Entertainment news website Deadline reported that the upcoming film by Warner Bros and Roald Dahl Story Co would serve as a prequel to the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and would tell the story of a young Willy Wonka before he became the renowned chocolate maker. The new Wonka will have a handful of musical numbers, giving Chalamet the opportunity to show off his singing and dancing skills for the first time on the big screen.
The film will be the third Warner Bros adaptation of the Willy Wonka story. Previously, Wonka’s character was famously played by Gene Wilder in the 1971 adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Later, Johnny Depp played the eccentric figure in the 2005 reboot directed by Tim Burton. Unlike the previous two, this upcoming prequel will not feature the ticket-winning boy Charlie Bucket as it will only focus on Wonka’s origin story.
Chalamet, best known for Oscar-winning films such as Call Me By Your Name (2017) and Little Women (2019), reportedly has always been the number one choice for the role, but casting the Oscar nominee took a while due to scheduling difficulties as he would also need to spend time training for the musical scenes amid his time filming other projects.
Wonka will be directed by Paul King, the man behind Paddington (2014) and its 2017 sequel. The screenplay is written by King and Simon Farnaby. David Heyman, the producer of the Harry Potter franchise and Paddington films, will produce via Heyday Films. Wonka is set to be released on March 17, 2023, according to Variety.
This adds to the long line of upcoming projects that Chalamet will be starring in. The 25-year-old will be present in the Dune adaptation by filmmaker Dennis Villeneuve, set to release this year. He will also appear in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch and Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up. Meanwhile, Wonka is set to be another addition to other prequels in the stream of releases to come, such as Disney’s Cruella and Army of Knives, a prequel to Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead.
