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New Willy Wonka movie may be an origin story

It looks as though Willy Wonka may be getting an origin story.

During an interview with SlashFilm, producer David Heyman revealed that the upcoming ‘Willy Wonka’ movie won’t retread old ground… and could explore the character’s origins.

“It’s not a remake,” he said. “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.”

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Of course, Willy Wonka first appeared on the big screen played by Gene Wilder in the children’s classic, ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’. He was later played by Johnny Depp in the Tim Burton reimagining, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.

And you can see why they don’t want to retell the same story.

But with two high-profile films focussed on the character of Willy Wonka, why should they return to him for a third time? Do we really need to know how Willy Wonka became the man we all know and love?

Either way, Heyman has a very personal reason for joining the project.

“I’m a huge Roald Dahl fan,” he explained. “I’ve been trying to work on Dahl material for quite some time but they’re all tied up. So when this was suggested, I didn’t take a moment to pause and want to jump right in.”

Although the film will clearly be based on Roald Dahl’s iconic chocolatier, it’s believed that the upcoming ‘Willy Wonka’ movie won’t draw anything from Dahl’s existing books.

“It’s challenging because you don’t have Dahl, you don’t have a Dahl book, and yet you have a Dahl character,” he said. “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.”

Will it prove as popular as ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’?

For now, we’ll have to wait and see.

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Picture Credit: Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros.