The Wonka movies that have been released to date:
- Mel Stuart’s “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (1971)
- Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (2003)
- Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer’s “Epic Movie” (2007)
- Spike Brandt’s “Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (2017)
- Paul King’s “Wonka” (2023)
Dahl famously hated the 1971 adaptation of his book, which sidelined Charlie, changing the title and the focus to Willy Wonka, played in the film by Gene Wilder. He later disowned the film, feeling it was just too far from the source material. It took many years, but thanks to the gods of VHS, Stuart’s film became deeply beloved by a generation of children, with many citing Wilder’s manic performance and the film’s nightmarish qualities to be deeply, weirdly appealing.
According to an article in Variety, the film rights to “Charlie” were sold to Warner Bros. in 1998, eight years after Dahl’s death. The remake stayed on the back burner for years before Tim Burton was brought on board. Burton’s adaptation isn’t widely beloved, but it was a big hit. Johnny Depp played Willy Wonka as a cross between Michael Jackson and Carol Channing.
Crispin Glover played Willy Wonka in the abysmal 2007 spoof flick “Epic Movie.” It’s bad, but Willy Wonka appears on screen, so it counts. The animated straight-to-video film starring Tom and Jerry was a bizarre Rosencrantz & Guildenstern-like repurposing of Stuart’s film, telling the same story from the perspective of the titular cat and mouse as they lurked in the shadows.
The new film “Wonka” is a prequel to Stuart’s film, and stars Timothée Chalamet as the mad chocolatier. The new film is colorful and fun, although lacks the weird bitterness that made the original so appealing.