Yahoo Movies Wonka creators say they would 'love' to see the musical become a West End show
The film premieres in cinemas on 8 December
Watch: Wonka director Paul King and co-writer Simon Farnaby share hope for the film becoming a West End show
Wonka director Paul King and his co-writer Simon Farnaby would be interested to see the musical head to the West End stage one day, they tell Yahoo UK.
The film stars Timothée Chalamet as Willy Wonka years before the events of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a budding chocolatier he is ready to introduce his sweet treats to the world by opening a shop at the Gallery Gourmet, however his confections have also brought him to the attention of the Chocolate Cartel who are ready to do anything to stop him from doing so.
Full of elaborate musical numbers and a delightful story, the film has a similar feel to Tim Minchin's musical adaptation of Dahl's Matilda.
King and Farnaby admit they'd be keen to see it happen, with the former calling it an "interesting idea" and the director adding: "I'd love it."
The Paddington filmmaker jokingly adds: "Do you have a couple of million dollars to spare to make a show?"
He goes on: "I fell in love with the songs so much and obviously as I was listening to Neil [Hannon] writing them, and crafting them with him to a certain extent, I was listening to them again and again and they sort of just get under your skin in such a glorious way," he adds.
"I spent a good year waking up with one of Neil's songs on my lips, which was a total pleasure and so making the sequences to them was great fun.
"It's something where you just go well I know I love this material and I can hold on to that love of it and never really get bored. So they were great fun to make I think, they're great."
"I think it'd make a great stage show."Paul King
Farnaby adds: "Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that, [making it into a West End musical] but yeah, it would suit it."
The songwriting process
While Hannon was in charge of writing the songs for the production, both Farnaby and King are credited as songwriters for several of the original tracks from the film.
While Farnaby said they only "helped a bit", King elaborates: "We started out writing because when we did the first draft of the script, we were the only people on the project apart from David [Heyman, producer] and Luke [Kelly, producer] and so we didn't have a songwriter, or we didn't have a team.
"Just to make a script that was readable we felt there were places where we knew we wanted songs in the movie and we had ideas of where they should be, and really just to make it a good read we thought we'd try and write verse, I suppose, and also felt like the thing Roald Dahl does all the way through the books, he writes these great poems that are supposed to be sung.
"We thought if we did that it would be a good first step, and we hoped that Neil would tidy them up a bit, but he essentially threw them out and started again because it turns out we're not songwriters."Paul King
Farnaby jokingly adds: "And he's a really good one, he kept a few of our syllables."
To which King responded: "He kept bits and pieces and then there are other ones where he completely started again.
"And then it became a back and forth process as we discovered through different drafts what the songs could do that the script couldn't do, and what the script could do maybe more concisely than the song. Once he was on board, we were able to all move together."
Wonka premieres in cinemas on Friday, 8 December.
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