Sweet Smell Of Success

From Night and Day Magazine (U.K.)

With Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, an £80 million budget & Britain's brightest young star, Tim Burton's Charlie & The Chocolate Factory has all the ingredients to be this summer's sweetest treat.

It's the most spectacular scene ever filmed at Britain's Pinewood Studios - a pink, sugar boat full of children sailing across a river of gooey melted chocolate, with an orchard bearing individually wrapped sweeties on either side. There's no computer trickery involved. The river's really there, 192,000 gallons of it & halfway across one of the children falls in & is coated in the sticky mess. It looks good enough to eat. It isn't, of course - this is Hollywood, so the goo is a non-toxic special-effect fluid, made for the new version of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.
It's the first from Jennifer Aniston & Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B, & it shows that while the Hollywood power couple's relationship may be on the rocks, they're still a working partnership to be reckoned with.
The film pulls no punches. With an estimated $150 million (£80 million) budget, Plan B & director Tim Burton, famed for fantasy films such as The Nightmare Before Christmas & Beetle Juice, are sparing no expense to stay true to Roald Dahl's novel.
In Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, the low-budget 1971 version of the film, in which the chocolate river looks like muddy water, the filmmakers replaced Wonka's trained nut-sorting squirrels with a machine. Plan B refused to compromise & are using 40 real squirrels, training them how to crack walnuts & deposit them on a conveyor belt. It took ten weeks of practice to make the rodents perform the feat. 'They're not good at taking verbal commands,' says their trainer.
Burton's no-holds-barred vision will also feature a chocolate that melts live on screen & the jungles of Loompaland, plus many other parts of the story that were missed out in the earlier film. Loompaland will be populated by an entire race of Oompa Loompas, all played by one dwarf actor, Burton stalwart Deep Roy, who will be cloned on computer into crowds of himself - & is being paid $1 million (£520,000) for his pains.
'I don't want to crush people's childhood dreams,' says Burton, who cast girlfriend Helena Bonham Carter as the mother of Charlie, the child who wins a tour of Wonka's magical factory. 'But the original film is sappy.' Author Roald Dahl himself hated the 1971 film, which starred Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka & refused the producers the rights to make a sequel, Charlie & The Great Glass Elevator. His widow, Liccy, turned down dozens of scripts before finally approving the one used in Burton's remake.
'I responded to Charlie & The Chocolate Factory because it respected the fact that children can be adults,' says Burton. 'I think adults forget that. It was one of the first times you had children's literature that was a bit more sophisticated & dealt with darker issues & feelings. It showed there can be darkness * foreboding. Very sinister things that are part of childhood.'
Johnny Depp agrees. 'Roald Dahl's novels can be fun, but they're dark at times. Some of his stuff you wouldn't want to read to your kids. In Charlie there are these dark, subtle messages. Tim Burton & Roald Dahl are a match made in heaven.'
Fresh from playing eccentric writer JM Barrie in Finding Neverland, Depp was determined not to let the earlier film version overshadow his interpretation of the magical chocolatier.
'Regardless of what one thinks of the 1971 film, Gene Wilder's persona stands out,' he says. 'That scares the hell out of you. Those are big shoes. So the only thing to do is go back to the book & try to figure out what Roald Dahl had in his head.'
Doing so has not been easy. Directors as diverse as Martin Scorsese & Stuart Little's Rob Minkoff have been linked to the projects, & stars including Michael Keaton, Nicolas Cage & Jim Carrey had all been in talks to play Wonka. In 2001, shock-rocker Marilyn Manson claimed he had been given the part.
But with Depp sporting giant glasses, oversized dentures, & reciting one-lines such as 'Chewing gum is really gross - chewing gum I hate the most.' his interpretation is possibly even weirder than Manson's would have been. 'I play him a kind of game-show host cum bratty child,' says Depp.
But Burton was determined that Wonka - although weird - should be a believable character. The sweet maker's background is fleshed out far more than it is in the books, but this is the only significant change Burton has made to his source material.
In the film, we learn how Willy Wonka lured Oompa Loompas from their island home to become his helpers in the magical chocolate factory. We also discover through flashback scenes how he found his vocation as a master sweet-maker - thanks to his domineering father, dentist Dr Wilbur Wonka, played by Christopher Lee. The child Wonka ends up with his head encased in a orthodontic cage, while Dr Wilbur burns his bag of sweets in the fire. Naturally, as soon as he grows up, he builds a magical sweet factory.
While it's Depp's wacky turn as the magical Wonka that has been the focus of attention so far, the real star of the film could well turn out to be Freddie Highmore, the 12-year-old British actor who also starred alongside Depp in Finding Neverland.
Burton had been having difficulty casting the role of Charlie Bucket, the child who wins a Golden Ticket to explore Wonka's factory, when Kate Winslet suggested to Depp that he try the 'great kid in Neverland?'
Depp, with whom Highmore shares a birthday, agreed, & after an audition, so did Burton.
'Freddie is something else,' says Winslet. 'I would literally get hairs up on the back of my neck watching this boy act. It's so rare that you feel that - not only with a child actor, but with any actor you work with. With this kid, it's a scary gift.'
Hollywood insiders predict that Charlie & The Chocolate Factory could turn Highmore into a star as big as Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe.
If all goes to plan, it will also be a fitting opening salvo for Brad & Jen's Plan B, which is currently working on another hit children's novel, 2003's The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time.
And even if the film doesn't generate enough momentum for a sequel, it won't be long before we see Roald Dahl on screen again. Wes Anderson, the comic behind The Life Aquatic, is already working on his classic Fantastic Mr Fox, & other novels such as The BFG are in production, 'It has been a long fight,' says Liccy Dahl, who is credited as one of the Film's executive producers. 'But it pays to wait.'

Why the Willy Wonka name still has that magic touch...

When Charlie & The Chocolate Factory premieres in the UK this summer, it will be accompanied with real-world Wonka goodies.
Among the delights filling up the sweet shops will be Nestlé Rowntree's range of Wonka delights: The Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight, The Nutty Crunch Surprise & The Triple Dazzle Caramel.
Nestlé has been heavily involved in the production of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, helping to create elements such as the chocolate river in Wonka's factory.
The company will relaunch the Wonka brand - Willy Wonka Bars were axed in the UK two years ago following poor sales - with a £5 million promotional campaign. There will even be a Golden Ticket sweepstake that mirrors the competition Charlie Bucket wins in the Roald Dahl book. It's not a new idea. Ever since the 1971 original film version, the Wonka name has been used to sell confectionary. Back then, Warners - the studio behind both film versions - pioneered the idea of movie merchandising & tie-ins. Poor Gene Wilder was even talked into showing up at the Wonkamobile, while Quaker Oats, who ere involved in funding the film, handed out free chocolate. With Star Wars still six years away, the idea that a movie could be used to drive sales of tie-in products was very new.
But Quaker's Wonka bars were a disaster - they were prone to melting on the shelves - & the oat giant quickly washed its hands of the brand.
Since then Wonka usually represented by a bearded man in a top hat, has since been used to sell confectionary in Canada & Australia & Rowntree ran with the brand in the UK.
This summer's revival of Wonka sweets - none of which are featured in the book - will be backed by prominent placement in the film, & the range will also include gift products such as a candy cane which Johnny Depp carries on screen.
But whether Rowntree meets with any more success than Quaker Oats remains to be seen.