Timothee Chalamet follows in the footsteps of Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp to play Willy Wonka in a new prequel film that looks at how Roald Dahl’s fictional character came to love chocolate.
The first trailer for Wonka was released on Tuesday, showing the 27-year-old Dune and Call Me by Your Name actor playing a younger version of the famed candy maker, discovering cocoa beans, befriending a young orphan girl and dreaming of having his chocolate store.
The film, out in December, is set before the 1971 movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, starring Wilder as Wonka in an adaptation of Dahl’s beloved 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
“The film tells the wild and wonderful story of Willy Wonka… what chocolate means to him and why he’s so driven to become this extraordinary chocolate maker,” Director Paul King said at a press preview of the trailer, adding he wanted to stay “true” to Dahl’s book when writing the script. “(He) is a fascinating, beguiling character, and it seemed interesting to dive a little deeper into him and try and come up with something that perhaps Roald Dahl might have approved of if he’d ever tried to write a prequel.”
