The iconography from Mel Stuart’s film has become all but synonymous with the Willy Wonka character over the last 50-plus years, even more so than the illustrations from the different editions of Roald Dahl’s source material (with Quentin Blake’s artwork being the best-known these days). It’s why Paul King declined to re-imagine Stuart’s specific rendition of the Wonka universe, much less break away from its continuity. As he told Entertainment Weekly:
“I didn’t want to reinvent those things ’cause it felt like that ’71 movie had come up with these incredibly enduring, iconic looks. What I wanted this movie to be was like a companion piece to that movie. If you imagine those people in that world 25 years earlier, that was my starting process. Eventually, he would grow into that person and that factory.”
This aligns with the first-look footage and images released from “Wonka” so far. Timothée Chalamet doesn’t dress exactly the same way Gene Wilder did as Willy Wonka (in fact, he dresses a bit more like Gonzo in “The Muppet Christmas Carol”), but he’s got the same top hat, brightly colored jacket, and twirling cane ensemble. In keeping with this approach, Hugh Grant as an Oompa-Loompa has the same somewhat nightmare-inducing white eyebrows, orange skin, and curly green hair as the ones from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” To be fair, that’s still a major step up from the early, racist depiction of the Oompa-Loompas imagined by Dahl.
Can Chalamet’s candyman charm a new generation while also winning over those who grew up watching Gene Wilder’s iteration make mischief and commit near-manslaughter bordering on negligent homicide? We’ll find out when “Wonka” dances its way into theaters on December 15, 2023.