Timothee Chalamet Is Willy Wonka, See The First Pic From The Prequel
See Timothee Chalamet in the top hat and coat as Willy Wonka for the new movie.
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As fans are gearing up to finally see Timothee Chalamet in Dune, he’s busy on the set filming his new Willy Wonka prequel movie, simply titled Wonka. Now, the star has shared the very first image of him in costume, playing the famous character previously made popular by Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp.
See the picture of Timothee Chalamet in character below.
For comparison purposes, here’s Gene Wilder in costume as his iconic version of the Willy Wonka character. There are definite similarities…
While Timothee Chalamet shared the picture on Twitter with the title of the movie, on Instagram he shared a slightly longer caption. The star wrote, “The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last…”. If that sounds familiar to you, then you’ve likely seen Gene Wilder‘s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory from 1971. He said the line when one of the children was captured in a machine and he was waiting to see how that would work out for the misbehaving guest of his chocolate factory.
Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp both played Wonka as an adult running the chocolate factory and showing the place off to young Charlie. Timothee Chalamet is taking the character on in a role audiences have yet to see before. This time, the movie will explore what Willy Wonka was up to before he became a genius inventor looking to give his life’s work away.
In this first look shared by the actor, it’s clear that his costume is taking cues from the original Gene Wilder take on the character. Timothee Chalamet is wearing a familiar top hat and purple velvet coat. He is also wearing a colorful paisley scarf, which is different from Gene Wilder’s bow tie or the collar worn by Johnny Depp, but still similar to those styles. It’s clear that Wonka is wanting to show a younger version of the character, with some mild changes to his style, but still make him as recognizable as possible for audiences who know him from both of the previous movies.
Wonka is going to tell a very different story than Johnny Depp and Gene Wilder’s films. Not only is the new Timothee Chalamet movie a prequel, but it’s also a musical. Audiences are familiar with Willy Wonka singing songs likes Pure Imagination, but Wonka is promising to take this a step further. The script is from Simon Rich, currently known for his years as a writer on Saturday Night Live and his work on Seth Rogen’s An American Pickle and Pixar’s Inside Out. Hopefully, the writer’s prior work indicates the movie will also have comedic elements.
The original movies were based on the novel by children’s writer Road Dahl. His books shared very little about Wonka’s origins. In the Johnny Depp film, we learned that Wonka’s father was a dentist, but there’s no telling whether that small detail will make it into the Timothee Chalamet prequel. It will also be interesting to see if the origin story will include details on the Oompa Loompas or how the candy factory came to be. For now, audiences have a better look at Chalamet in character. This will likely mark the beginning of new pieces of information for fans over the coming months as filming takes place.
