Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 2005 musical fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and written by John August, based on the 1964 British novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. The film stars Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket, alongside David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor, Missi Pyle, James Fox, Deep Roy, and Christopher Lee. The storyline follows Charlie as he wins a contest along with four other children and is led by Wonka on a tour of his chocolate factory.
For the 1971 film adaptation, see Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Village Roadshow Pictures
- The Zanuck Company
- Plan B Entertainment
- Theobald Film Productions
- July 10, 2005 (Grauman's Chinese Theatre)
- July 15, 2005 (United States)
- July 29, 2005 (United Kingdom)
115 minutes[1]
English
$150 million[4]
Development for a second adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory began in 1991, which resulted in Warner Bros. providing the Dahl estate with total artistic control. Prior to Burton's involvement, directors such as Gary Ross, Rob Minkoff, Martin Scorsese, and Tom Shadyac had been involved, while actors Bill Murray, Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Michael Keaton, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Adam Sandler, and many others, were either in discussion with or considered by the studio to play Wonka. Burton immediately brought regular collaborators Depp and Danny Elfman aboard. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory represents the first musical film directed by Burton and the first time since The Nightmare Before Christmas that Elfman contributed to a film score using written songs and his vocals.
Filming took place from June to December 2004 at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom. Rather than using computer-generated environments, Burton primarily used built sets and practical effects, which he claimed was inspired by the book's emphasis on texture. Wonka's Chocolate Room was constructed on the 007 Stage at Pinewood, complete with a faux chocolate waterfall and river. Squirrels were trained from birth for Veruca Salt's elimination. Actor Deep Roy performed each Oompa-Loompa individually rather than one performance duplicated digitally. Burton shot the film simultaneously alongside the stop-motion animated film Corpse Bride, which he also directed.
Willy Wonka-themed chocolate bars were sold, and a Golden Ticket contest was launched as part of the film's marketing campaign. Early plans to promote the film with a Broadway theatre musical were not realized. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory premiered on July 10, 2005, and was released in the United States on July 15 to positive critical reviews, who commended it for its visual appeal and dark tone. It was also a box office success,[7][8] grossing US$475 million and becoming the eighth-highest-grossing film worldwide in 2005. The film received a nomination for Best Costume Design at the 78th Academy Awards, while Depp was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy. It remains Tim Burton's second-highest-grossing film to date.
Plot
Charlie Bucket is a kind and loving boy who lives in poverty with his family near the Wonka Factory. The company's owner, Willy Wonka, has long closed his factory to the public due to problems concerning industrial espionage, which also caused all his employees, including Charlie's Grandpa Joe, to lose their jobs. Charlie's father, meanwhile, has more recently been laid off from his own job at a toothpaste factory, although he does not admit this to Charlie.
One day, Wonka announces a contest in which Golden Tickets have been placed in five random Wonka Bars worldwide, and the winners will receive a full tour of the factory as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate, while one will receive an additional prize at the end of the tour. Wonka's sales subsequently skyrocket, and the first four tickets are found by the gluttonous Augustus Gloop, the spoiled Veruca Salt, the arrogant Violet Beauregarde, and the ill-tempered Mike Teavee. Charlie tries twice to find a ticket, but both bars come up empty. After overhearing that the final ticket was found in Russia, Charlie finds a banknote and purchases a third Wonka Bar. The Russian ticket is revealed to be a forgery just as Charlie discovers the real ticket inside the wrapper. He receives monetary offers for the ticket, but the cashier warns him not to trade it regardless, and Charlie runs back home. At home, Charlie initially wants to trade the ticket for money for his family's betterment, but after a pep talk from Grandpa George, he decides to keep it, and brings Grandpa Joe to accompany him on the tour.
Charlie and the other ticket holders are greeted outside the factory by Wonka, who then leads them into the facility. Individual character flaws cause the other four children to give in to temptation, resulting in their elimination from the tour while Wonka's new employees, the Oompa-Loompas, sing a song of morality after each. Meanwhile, Wonka reminisces on his troubled past and how his dentist father, Wilbur, strictly forbade him from consuming any candy. After sneaking a piece of candy, Wonka instantly became hooked and ran away from home to follow his dreams. When he returned, however, both his father and their house were gone.
After the tour, the four eliminated children leave the factory with an exaggerated characteristic or deformity related to their elimination, while Charlie learns that Wonka, now approaching retirement, intended to find a worthy heir. Since Charlie was the least ill-behaved of the five, Wonka invites Charlie to come live and work in the factory with him, provided that he leave his family behind. Charlie declines, as his family is the most important thing in his life.
As Charlie and his family's life improve, Wonka becomes despondent, causing his company and sales to decline. He eventually turns to Charlie for advice, and he decides to help Wonka reconcile with his estranged father, Wilbur. During the reunion, Charlie notices newspaper clippings of Wonka's success which Wilbur collected, while Wonka realizes the value of family as he and Wilbur finally reconcile. Afterwards, Wonka allows Charlie and his family to move into the factory together.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Production
Development
Author Roald Dahl disapproved of the 1971 film adaptation. Warner Bros. Pictures and Brillstein-Grey Entertainment entered into discussions with the Dahl estate in 1991, hoping to purchase the rights to produce another film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The purchase was finalized in 1998,[9] with Dahl's widow, Felicity ("Liccy"), and daughter, Lucy, receiving total artistic control and final privilege on the choices of actors, directors and writers. The Dahl estate's subsequent protection of the source material was the main reason that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had languished in development hell since the 1990s.[10][11]
Ang Lee, Terry Gilliam, Anthony Minghella, and Spike Jonze were among the Dahl estate's preferred directors for the project.[12] Scott Frank was hired to write the screenplay in February 1999, after approaching Warner Bros. for the job.[11] Frank, a recent Oscar-nominee for the R-rated crime film Out of Sight (1998), wanted to work on a film that his children could enjoy.[13][14][15] As an enthusiastic fan of the book, he intended to remain more faithful to Dahl's vision than the 1971 film had been.[11] Nicolas Cage was under discussions for Willy Wonka, but lost interest.[16] Gary Ross signed to direct in February 2000,[17] which resulted in Frank completing two drafts of the screenplay,[15] before leaving with Ross in September 2001.[18] Both Warner Bros. and the Dahl Estate wanted Frank to stay on the project, but he faced scheduling conflicts and contractual obligations with Minority Report (2002) and The Lookout (2007).[15]
Rob Minkoff entered negotiations to take the director's position in October 2001,[19] and Gwyn Lurie was hired to start from scratch on a new script in February 2002. Lurie said she would adapt the original book and ignore the 1971 film adaptation. Dahl's estate championed Lurie after being impressed with her work on another Dahl adaptation, a live-action adaptation of The BFG, for Paramount Pictures, which was never made (Paramount distributed the earlier 1971 film version of Charlie, and later sold the rights to Warner Bros.).[20] In April 2002, Martin Scorsese was involved with the film, albeit briefly, but opted to direct The Aviator (2004) instead.[16] Warner Bros. president Alan F. Horn wanted Tom Shadyac to direct Jim Carrey as Willy Wonka, believing the duo could make Charlie and the Chocolate Factory relevant to mainstream audiences, but Liccy Dahl opposed this.[10]
Pre-production
In May 2003, Warner Bros. announced that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would be one of their tentpole film releases for 2005.[16] Later that month, Tim Burton was hired to direct after receiving enthusiastic approval from the Dahl estate.[9] Burton compared the project's languishing development to Batman (1989), which he directed, in how there had been varied creative efforts with both films. He said, "Scott Frank's version was the best, probably the clearest, and the most interesting, but they had abandoned that."[21] Liccy Dahl commented that Burton was the first and only director the estate was happy with. He had previously produced another of the author's adaptations with James and the Giant Peach (1996), and, like Roald Dahl, disliked the 1971 film because it strayed from the book's storyline.[10]
Reception
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 83% of 229 critical reviews of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are positive, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Closer to the source material than 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is for people who like their Chocolate visually appealing and dark."[136] According to Metacritic, which calculated a weighted average score of 72 out of 100 from 40 critic reviews, the film received "generally favorable reviews".[137] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[138]
A. O. Scott of The New York Times gave a positive review, writing "in spite of relapses and imperfections, a few of them serious, Mr. Burton's movie succeeds in doing what far too few films aimed primarily at children even know how to attempt anymore, which is to feed—even to glut—the youthful appetite for aesthetic surprise." Scott also praised Alex McDowell's set design, comparing the look of the factory to something out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927).[139] Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle found Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Burton's "best work in years. If all the laughs come from Depp, who gives Willy the mannerisms of a classic Hollywood diva, the film's heart comes from Highmore, a gifted young performer whose performance is sincere, deep and unforced in a way that's rare in a child actor."[140] Peter Travers wrote in Rolling Stone magazine that "Depp's deliciously demented take on Willy Wonka demands to be seen. Depp goes deeper to find the bruises on Wonka's secret heart than what Gene Wilder did. Depp and Burton may fly too high on the vapors of pure imagination, but it's hard to not get hooked on something this tasty. And how about that army of Oompa-Loompas, all played by Deep Roy, in musical numbers that appear to have been choreographed by Busby Berkeley on crack."[141]
Depp's performance as Willy Wonka received widespread comparisons to Michael Jackson.[142] Roger Ebert was among the critics who made such comparisons, citing Depp's performance as the weak spot in an "otherwise mostly delightful" film and noting "[Willy Wonka's] reclusive lifestyle, the fetishes of wardrobe and accessories, the elaborate playground built by an adult for the child inside" as parallels between the two.[143] Depp was surprised by the comparisons and stated that he did not base his performance on Jackson.[144] Burton dismissed the comparisons and stated that, unlike Jackson, Depp's iteration of the character does not like children.[145] Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post criticized Depp's acting: "The cumulative effect isn't pretty. Nor is it kooky, funny, eccentric or even mildly interesting. Indeed, throughout his fey, simpering performance, Depp seems to be straining so hard for weirdness that the entire enterprise begins to feel like those excruciating occasions when your parents tried to be hip."[146] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly praised Depp's performance, writing "he maintains the paradox, the mystery, of Willy Wonka: a misanthrope who has little patience for children, who can't even utter the word 'parents' without gagging, yet who invents for those same kids the purest and most luscious candies out of the sugar dream of his imagination."[147] Depp received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance but lost to Joaquin Phoenix for Walk the Line.[148][149]
Gene Wilder's reaction
In 2004, during on-set interviews while filming, Burton criticized the 1971 film adaptation,[10][150] while Depp paid homage to Gene Wilder's portrayal and praised it as "brilliant but subtle".[10][151] Wilder was appreciative towards Depp's comments, but expressed skepticism toward Burton's production, questioning it as a remake made for profit.[152][153][154] The filmmakers emphasized that the film was an adaptation of the 1964 book and not a remake of the 1971 film. Depp found Wilder's remarks "disappointing", although "I can understand where he's coming from, I guess."[4] Wilder later praised Depp's casting, saying, "If I were going to cast the movie, I would cast Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka because I think he is wonderful. Mysterious—always—and magical."[155] In 2013, Wilder further criticized the film as a "Warner Bros.' insult", disapproving Burton "for doing stuff like he did."[154]