Watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory the other day and asked my friends who they think would play him if they made a remake. Everyone agreed on the same guy. Without me influencing your view who do you guys think?

Jim Carrey, I'd say.

NOT Jim Carrey.
NOT Mike Myers.
NOT any of the SNL cast (Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan etc) *shudders to think of how bad it would be..*


I would like to see someone like Samuel L. Jackson or Kevin Spacey. They both have that wonderfully hidden psychotic side to them... or Gary Oldman. They are all wonderful character actors.

*thinks of Sam Jackson singing the Oompah Loompah song... and rolls off her chair laughing*

I think they are filming a remake with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.

The film is being made and nearing the end of production at Pinewood Studios. A friend of mine went there a couple of weeks ago with a friend of his (who makes snow for movie productions) and got to see Johnny Depp in action.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367594/

Says it's Johnny Depp.

we all went for jim carrey as an obvious pick. Of course we werent trying to be clever. He says looking at no one in particular.

Johnny Depp will be a great Willy Wonka. I said Jim Carrey because I assumed that is who Hollywood would want in the role. But Johnny Depp will be better.

He's shy, he's subtle and very deliberate in his choice of roles...not your average Hollywood pretty boy. I wonder what his interpretation of Wonka will be? Personally, my favorite early role of his was that of Gilbert Grape. Edward Scissorhands wasn't bad, either.

I heard it's johnny depp. saw a commerical preview of it somewhere.

It's hard to imagine a better Wonka than Gene Wilder. Johnny Depp might pull it off equally well, however. (But differently.) He'll get the creepy down...not sure about the funny.

You're right, skylarb. Gene Wilder will be hard to beat. [Even though his WW potrayal is mysterious, it won't probably have the 'darkness' of a Depp interpretation.] However, Depp can play funny when he wants to...we will have to wait and see.

Oh yes, Depp can be quite funny. I'm thinking of Captain Jack Sparrow, to be precise...

Has anybody else seen the new Willie Wonka? The graphics,[ as we all knew they would ] blew the original film out of the water...but still. As much as I liked certain parts of the new one, Gene Wilder still holds first place in my heart. He was dryly funny without losing his natural sweetness. He seemed to care about the oopa loompas in his charge, and about Charlie, too.

The Johnny Depp portrayal left me flat because he was creepy and pretty much 'emotionally unavailable' to Charlie and everybody else in the film, too.Not to mention the fact they made him look like a girl. [Edith Head in a top hat? ] Or something.

I have not seen the Gene Wilder version, but I have seen the newer offering. I thought it was hysterically funny.
I saw him more as being emotionally fragile, as opposed to unavailable. He was horribly betrayed by his father (he leaves for the day and his father moves house - quite literally) and then again by spies among his workers. Because of all this he lived without much human contact for years.
I loved the way that Charlie, with his love of family before fortune, brought him back in touch with both his feelings and his father, and with the outside world in general.

I haven't seen the new one, and personally, don't intend to as I feel Johnny Depp cannot reprise the role of Willy Wonka the way Gene Wilder did. The 1971 original movie was quite good.

Gene has a wry sense of humor, but he fit that role perfectly.

Right, Skunkee - they do wrap it up well at the end, and it is very funny. But by the time they fully resolve Willie's childhood [explaining it in bits and pieces] he is already set in one's mind as fragile and self absorbed as he is in the beginning...not open and loving as he is toward the end of the movie.

I love the oompas all being identical [hundreds being played by one man]

I've had misgivings about this since I heard of it. Not that I don't love Johnny Depp. Or Tim Burton, for that matter. Obviously Johnny Depp is a favorite of Tim's, and the two of them get the creep down well. It is actually Mr. Burton's association with the project that worried me more than Mr' Depps. I'd rather see Johnny Depp a la Benny and Joon as Willy Wonka, than Edward Scissorwonka.

Add to that the fact that the book is one of my all time favorites, and the first movie, while diverging from the book somewhat, was SO wonderful, and I'm just full of doubt. I don't want to see it and hate it, which is what I fear. (And when IS someone going to make Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator? I want to see a vermicious knid! Now, I think Tim Burton could pull that one off well.)

seen the previews, might see it one day, but I think I much prefer the original!

The only way I'll see the new Wonka movie would be to compare it to the original; but I can say right now, going by previews alone, that I won't like it. For one thing, Willy Wonka didn't have a green face in the original like Depp's in the remake.

Directors and producers have to understand that just because Depp is a household name, doesn't mean he can or should act in everything. One movie that he was horrible in was "From Hell," and something tells me the new Wonka movie will be horrible, too.

DN do not be put off by the trailers, they do not do it justice. I was not excited about seeing it based on the trailers, and was positively delighted with it.
His face isn't green!