THERE’S a new Willy Wonka movie in the works.
According to Variety, Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to Willy Wonka from the Roald Dahl Estate.
The movie will reportedly be focused solely on Willy Wonka and his early adventures.
If it goes ahead, it will be the third movie about the eccentric candy maker after 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder and 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp.
To celebrate the exciting news about a third potential film, here are some fun facts about the first (and the best) Wonka movie:
DEMANDING STAR
Gene Wilder had one very specific request before he agreed to play Willy Wonka.
The actor demanded that they use his idea for Willy Wonka’s first appearance in the film.
“When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp,” Wilder wrote in a letter to director Mel Stuart.
“After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realise that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.”
When asked why he was so adamant about this scene, Wilder replied, “From that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth”.
YOUNG STARS’ SALARIES
Themmen was paid $US500 per week for the nine weeks of filming, as well as a free trip with his family to Germany where the movie was filmed.
In a Reddit AMA, he revealed that he also gets the occasional cheque in the mail for his work in the film.
“I get residuals when the film is shown on network TV, not for cable, DVD, or VHS sales,” Themmen said.
“The contract between the signatory producers and SAG that covered those ancillary markets was signed six months after I signed my contract. Ouch.”
CHOCOLATE RIVER
“No other factory in the world mixes its chocolate by waterfall,” Wonka says in the movie.
But alas, that chocolate river wasn’t actually real.
“The river was made of water with food colouring,” Themmen said.
“At one point, they poured some cocoa powder into it to try to thicken it but it didn’t really work.”
When asked this question, Michael Böllner (who played Augustus Gloop) answers, ‘It vas dirty, stinking vater’.”
That’s a tasty looking river.Source:Alamy
NATURAL REACTIONS
When the kids enter the Chocolate Room for the first time, their minds are blown. And those reactions are 100 per cent real.
“They wanted to film our initial reactions to the Chocolate Room set, so it was a closed set until they opened the door, let us in, and we saw the river running, the waterfall flowing, 360 degrees of a panoramic chocolate wonderland,” Themmen said.
The same goes for when the golden ticket winners take that terrifying boat ride in the tunnel with Wonka.
“The director did not warn us what was coming in this scene,” Themmen said.
“Gene (Wilder) is so great in this scene, and it didn’t take much acting on our part to play ‘What the heck is wrong with this guy?’”
Credit : News.com.au