The Scrumdiddlyumptious World Of “WONKA”

 From Warner Bros

Based on the extraordinary, iconic character at the center of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one of the best-selling children’s books of all time, “Wonka” tells the wondrous story of how a young chocolate-maker, armed with nothing but a hatful of dreams, manages to change the world, one delectable bite at a time. 

From Paul King, writer/director of the “Paddington” films, David Heyman, producer of “Harry Potter,” “Gravity,” “Barbie” and “Paddington,” and producers Alexandra Derbyshire (the “Paddington” films, “Jurassic World: Dominion”) and Luke Kelly (“Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical”), comes an intoxicating mix of magic and music, mayhem and emotion, all told with fabulous heart and humor. Starring Timothée Chalamet in the title role, this irresistibly vivid and inventive big screen spectacle will introduce audiences to a young Willy Wonka, as he becomes the world’s greatest inventor, magician and chocolate-maker. 

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Starring alongside Chalamet are Calah Lane (“The Day Shall Come”), Emmy and Peabody Award winner Keegan-Michael Key (“The Prom,” “Schmigadoon”), Paterson Joseph (“Vigil,” “Noughts + Crosses”), Matt Lucas (“Paddington,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Little Britain”), Mathew Baynton (“The Wrong Mans,” “Ghosts”), Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins (“The Shape of Water,” the “Paddington” films, “Spencer”), Rowan Atkinson (the “Johnny English” and “Mr. Bean” films, “Love Actually”), Jim Carter (“Downton Abbey”), with Oscar winner Olivia Colman (“The Favourite,” “The Lost Daughter,” “The Crown”), and Hugh Grant (“Paddington 2,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Notting Hill,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral”). The film also stars Natasha Rothwell (“White Lotus,” “Insecure”), Rich Fulcher (“Marriage Story,” “Disenchantment”), Rakhee Thakrar (“Sex Education,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral”), Tom Davis (“Paddington 2,” “King Gary”) and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (“Paddington 2,” “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” “Mary Poppins Returns”).

Simon Farnaby (“Paddington 2”) & Paul King wrote the screenplay, based on a story by King and characters created by Roald Dahl. Michael Siegel, Cate Adams, Rosie Alison and Tim Wellspring are serving as executive producers. King’s behind-the-scenes creative team includes director of photography Chung-hoon Chung (“Last Night in Soho,” “The Handmaiden,” “Oldboy”); Oscar-nominated production designer Nathan Crowley (“Tenet,” “Dunkirk”); editor Mark Everson (the “Paddington” films, “Johnny English Strikes Again”); Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming (the “Paddington” films, “The Dark Night,” “Casino Royale,” “Topsy-Turvy”); and composer Joby Talbot (the “Sing” films). Neil Hannon of the band The Divine Comedy wrote the original songs for the film.

PAUL KING (Director / Screen and Story Writer) On telling the story of a young Willy Wonka…

 PAUL KING: “I wanted to bring to the world a Wonka back when he was young and wide-eyed and full of hope and optimism, before he became this sort of Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka that we all know and love. Somebody that didn’t have a penny to his name, but had a dream of a brighter tomorrow. What I wanted to show is the flowering of a genius in the most extraordinary way you can possibly imagine—a man who discovers who he is, but also finds a family.

“So, when we first meet Willy Wonka in the movie, he hasn’t really become the character that so many of us grew up with. He’s really a young man arriving in this strange city, this magical, mystical place. He has come with a very clear vision of what he wants the future to be and he believes it to be possible… and so he won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. I feel you don’t become one of these great inventors without a pretty strong sense of determination and a belief in the impossible. I don’t think he’d hear somebody say, ‘Well, that’s impossible’ and go, ‘Oh well, that’s it. I roll over and give up.’ He’s Willy Wonka, and he can make Fizzy Lifting Drink! He can make the Everlasting Gobstopper!”

On Timothée Chalamet as Wonka…

 PAUL KING: “When I think of Timothée in this role, I just think about how simple it was casting him as Wonka. I think he has the most extraordinary quality. He feels slightly like he’s stepped in from another dimension; it feels like he captures the essence of that sort of otherworldly magical character completely perfectly—this combination of strange and slightly unknowable energy, and sincerity and humor and eccentricity. He ultimately became a true creative partner in the movie.”

On the return of the Oompa Loompa… 

PAUL KING: “It wouldn’t be a Willy Wonka movie without an Oompa Loompa, but I was interested in the idea of the Oompa Loompa following Willy, rather than Willy tracking down the Oompa Loompas. We know they are huge fans of chocolate. Willy, of course, makes the best chocolate in the world, and so this Oompa Loompa is tracking Willy around the world for his chocolate and stealing it from him whenever he wants. 

In the book, the Oompa Loompas have these many-pages-long poems or songs, and they’re very funny and sarcastic. They have this gleeful delight, and they are biting and sardonic. Hugh Grant’s voice kept coming into my head. And the idea of him with orange skin and green hair… Once I had that in my head, it was hard to shake it. And then I had to share that image with the world.”

Filming at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden began in the fall of 2021 and shot for 21 weeks on more than 50 incredible sets built across three sound stages, a massive backlot and an aircraft hangar, and also involved shooting at more than 10 stunning locations.

Alongside Main Unit shooting, the dance and music teams rehearsed daily with principal cast, as well as dancers, crowd, stunts and the flying team, and that schedule was as busy as the Main Unit. (Second Unit that shot alongside the Main was named “Oompa Loompa Unit.”)

To realize the world Paul King had imagined, art, set decoration, construction and props crafted a romantic, fairytale city on the Leavesden backlot, and built on and adapted beautiful locations in and around England—from a small village in Oxfordshire, to a 1950s ballroom and the iconic St. Paul’s Cathedral.

King described the city to his creative team as “the best of Europe,” and production designer Nathan Crowley—working closely with set decorator Lee Sandales and property master Jamie Wilkinson—gave Paul exactly that, fashioning a charming town with a mix of Belgian, Czech, Dutch, French, German and Swiss architecture. The resulting combination of set builds (borrowing from real-world structures) and location work augmented the scale of the town and authenticated the vision. The lightness of the limestone in the Bath and Oxford locations was emulated through the set builds, enhancing the romance of the newly constructed.

This is a blended vision of Europe in place, with the design vernacular running all the way through the set decoration and graphics, while also being reflected in the language and signage. While based in a real world, the heightened reality is created by lighting, color and, of course, performance (singing and dancing, too!), and lifts the world into the realm of fantasy where Wonka magic can happen.

King and his team mapped this island city out to the smallest detail, starting with a ruined castle at the top and an ornate town square in the middle, with cathedral to one side and opposite, the famed Galeries Gourmet. From the square, cobbled streets lead down to the docks and over the bridge and down the alleyways to Mrs Scrubitt’s Bruges-style workhouse laundry.

Another network of streets is revealed underground, where Wonka secretly escapes the laundry to peddle his chocolates in the square. Building the storm drains on a soundstage limited the space available, but Crowley applied old school techniques to expand the space, forcing the perspective with back-lit painted backings and mirrors.

WONKA’S CHOCOLATE SHOP 

The interior of Wonka’s Chocolate Shop was a separate build on Leavesden’s S Stage. A romantic and enchanted candy land, this was Dahl-inspired design at its best. Moving, rotating theatrical elements bring an extraordinary imagination to life. The filmmakers based the design on Willy’s childhood memories: the centerpiece of the shop is a cherry blossom tree, a beautiful tree Willy and his mother used to sail past on their barge. The rotating tree is reached via a bridge and features a curved trunk, which Willy walks up into the twirling treetop surrounded by pink-tinged, cotton-candy clouds. A chocolate barge moves along a candy river with white- and cream-topped theatrical blue waves, where Willy and Noodle clink “cheers” with chocolate teacups. A pink Turkish Delight-road winds around the shop.

Everything growing in the magical garden is meant to be edible: enormous roses, meadow flowers, grass, bushes, lollipops and cotton candy clouds. Art teams followed a simple rule in fabricating and dressing elements into the set—“if it doesn’t look truly edible, don’t use it.”

A huge amount of research and development work went into finding artificial flowers and greenery, along with the right processes to make something appear edible and delicious—sculpting, test painting, sugar coating, glazing, chocolate dipping.

SINGING, DANCING AND…FLYING 

Music adds to the magic of the Willy Wonka story, with six original songs from Neil Hannon (with lyrics by Hannon, along with Farnaby and King), alongside the muchloved “Pure Imagination” and the “Oompa Loompa” theme. The six new songs are: “A Hatful of Dreams,” “You’ve Never Had Chocolate Like This,” “Scrub Scrub,” “Sweet Tooth,” “For A Moment” and “A World of Your Own.”

The film’s music department counted composer Joby Talbot, songwriter Hannon, music supervisor James Taylor and music producer Charlie Rosen among its ranks, as well as a music editor, on-set ProTools operator and a music assistant on set every day. There was also a vocal coach, recording mix engineer and assistants working with cast and in the background.

Vocal preparation began a full four months before the commencement of principal photography, which involved coaching and researching with cast, Rosen’s arranging the tracks from piano demos to fully-produced demos and pre-recording vocals and instruments. Taylor and Rosen created a sound for “Wonka” by paying particular attention to instrumentation, bringing in the sounds of such instruments as an accordion, a banjo and dulcimer.

Once the sound was established and the tracks were built, it was time to move on to adding the vocals from the actors, pre-recording the songs at Abbey Road—the tracks were then played back during filming, with some live recordings on set also taking place. An on-site studio allowed talent to record any immediate changes, offering the possibility for adjusting the vocals along the way.

In addition to all the vocal and musical preparation, cast members began working with choreographer Christopher Gatelli at the same time they began their singing prep. Gatelli came to King’s attention with his work choreographing the funny 1940s barroom routine in 2016’s “Hail, Caesar!” Gatelli worked to create a visual language and dance style for “Wonka” by incorporating a variety of styles to suit the music—tap, waltz, even a Broadway-esque showstopper with kickline.

When airborne choreography was required, the Flying By Foy team worked with the filmmakers and Gatelli, coming up with technical ways to achieve the creative ideas involved in King’s vision; Foy was represented in a core team of three.

The biggest flying sequence takes place once Willy supplies Hoverchocs to customers in the town square, and the resulting number becomes an aerial ballet for the up to 20 performing, hovering in individual positions and traveling at different speeds and heights (with a camera descending through them). Foy’s proprietary system of harnesses and suspension provides for exact repetition of the movements for each take with everything timed to the millisecond; they were able to finesse the light touch look King wanted with full control over the performers’ movement all the way. This control also enabled the seamless combination of flying and dancing with Willy and Noodle’s sky-bound duet.

CHOCOLATE

 If one is making a film about the creation of the world’s best chocolatier, one should perhaps bring on a real-life chocolatier to help create the hundreds of chocolates consumed onscreen in the course of the movie. Enter Gabriella Cugno, officially in the set decorating and props team, but in essence, the behind-the-scenes Wonka of “Wonka.”

After being sent the script, Cugno took a crack at making six confections (with up to four different designs each) for King, taking care to make sure the outside “signaled” the inside and conveyed the magic of the sweet. After a show-and-taste, King chose his favorite of each and gave instruction for the design of the remaining chocolates.

Per King: “Everything that is eaten in the movie is not only edible, but delicious. I promise. When the characters eat flowers or leaves, they’re edible. They’re great. And there was an amazing thing on set one day... I was remembering the bit where Gene Wilder [as Willy Wonka] eats the teacup. We had a shot and I was like, ‘Oh, if only I’d thought of this, we could have a chocolate cup that Willy could make.’ And Gabriella went, ‘Oh, I can do that.’ And I went, ‘We’ve got an hour before we film it.’ ‘Don’t worry.’ And she went away and made half a dozen, because obviously you need multiple takes. Blue, perfect little cup and saucer, made of different blue leaves all formed into the shape. And you just go, ‘I need you in my life.’”

Since the chocolate also had to be believably made by Willy with his portable chocolate-making case (a props marvel in and of itself), Cugno worked closely with the props team to design the molds. She primarily used darker chocolate (because of its stronger properties) and observed dietary requirements (there were vegan versions as well).

The final tally of chocolates created for “Wonka” included: 900 Hoverchocs, 80 Silver Linings, 85 Big Night Outs, 150 Giraffe Milk Macaroons, 400 Forty Second Sweets (Broadway Show), 200 Hair Repair Éclairs and 80 Mamma’s Wonka Bars.

In addition, limited numbers of edible flora had to be created for the Wonka’s Chocolate Shop sequence. These included a blue ball flower (15 flowers were constructed using 300 handmade petals each, 4,500 petals total); 50 purple flowers; 80 red roses; and six of the famous last-minute chocolate teacups. Other confections included edible versions of purple and orange mushrooms, purple roses, large orange leaves, cherries, cherry blossoms, soil, honeycomb, bees, pears and tree bark. Wonka’s shop also boasted doughnuts, ice creams and a sweet version of spaghetti and meatballs.

Though not nearly as showy as her other creations, Cugno also crafted around 400 very conventional chocolates (simply molded and painted) that served as the confections sold by the Cartel. 

And every single chocolate crafted for “Wonka” was completely hand-tempered and handmade, with all natural ingredients, no artificial flavors or preservatives. Something which would make Willy Wonka very proud indeed.

Warner Bros. Pictures Presents, in Association with Village Roadshow Pictures, a Heyday Films Production, a Paul King Confection, “Wonka,” set to open in theaters and in IMAX internationally beginning 6 December 2023 and in North America on December 15, 2023; it will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.

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