Timothée Chalamet asks us to “quiet up and listen down” in the first trailer for Wonka. Screenshot via trailer
And takes on a notorious chocolate cartel
After almost two years of sporadic peeks and too-little information, the long-awaited first trailer for Wonka starring Timothée Chalamet is here. Directed by Paul King of the cult-favorite Paddington movies, Wonka is a prequel to the candy wonderland that captivated our imaginations in 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
The trailer shows a young Willy Wonka returning from travels abroad, during which he perfected the art of making chocolate. “How do you like it?” he asks. “Dark? White? Nutty? Absolutely insane?” Wonka wants to open a chocolate shop, but budding chocolatiers in his town — where even daydreaming is prohibited — have had their dreams crushed by a restrictive chocolate cartel. In true Christmas movie fashion, Wonka and his imagination will presumably win out, setting the stage for older Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstoppers and chocolate river.
Unlike Tim Burton’s 2005 remake Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, King “didn’t want to reinvent” the iconic Gene Wilder movie. Instead, he wanted to create Wonka as a “companion piece” to it, as he told Entertainment Weekly. The cast includes Olivia Colman — who recently appeared in the standout seventh episode of season 2 of The Bear — and Paddington star Hugh Grant, as an Oompa Loompa.
HUGHMPA LOOMPA DOOPATY GRANT
— Timothée Chalamet (@RealChalamet) July 11, 2023
Wonka hits theaters in the United States on December 15. To borrow Chalamet’s words in Little Women: “And I’ll watch.”
