World, are you ready for Wonka? Warner Bros. sure hopes so as the studio debuted a new trailer starring Timothée Chalamet as the chocolate aficionado Willy Wonka in the Paul King-directed musical at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Tuesday morning.
The trailer, which was for the room only, showed off plenty of mainstays of the Willy Wonka character, including chocolate that makes one float, and a kicker: Hugh Grant as an Oompa-Loompa, which got big laughs from the crowd. Chalamet called working with Grant as a “dream come true.” He added of the Oompa-Loompa character, “it was a trip.”
The whimsical trailer also revealed that Willy Wonka must face off against a chocolate cartel that wants to prevent him from practicing his craft.
The showing came one year after Warners first revealed footage at CinemaCon 2022 of a singing and dancing Chalamet as the title character created by author Roald Dahl and played by Gene Wilder in the classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). “Is everybody ready,” Chalamet’s Wonka asked in last year’s look via voiceover in the opening moments followed by what appeared to be a fantastical adventure filled with singing, dancing and clashes with authorities in a quest to spread chocolate to the world.
Chalamet stars opposite Olivia Colman, Keegan-Michael Key, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Colin O’Brien, Matt Lucas, Simon Farnaby, Natasha Rothwell, Rufus Jones and more. Warner Bros. has described the prequel — the film is set to take place before the events of the book — as a “vivid, mythical beginnings of the imaginative young inventor before he becomes the renowned scrumdiddlyumptious Mozart of chocolate.”
King directed from a script he co-wrote with Farnaby. David Heyman, Luke Kelly and Alexandra Derbyshire are the producers.
In a British Vogue profile, Chalamet revealed that he has seven musical numbers in the film, which he described as “so sincere” and “so joyous.” When THR ran into Chalamet co-star Keegan-Michael Key at the premiere of his Hulu series Reboot, he shared even more.
“I would agree with all the adjectives Timothée used, and I would also like to add the words ‘wondrous’ and ‘a little bit epic.’ It’s a nice, big, full, beautiful piece of art, and Paul King, who directed it, is a delightful human being who has this wonderful, childlike heart. He was the perfect person to direct the project,” said Key.
And how is Chalamet as Mr. Wonka? “There’s this wonderful effortlessness about how he plays Wonka, not to mention the fact that there’s this hopeful quality that he gives the character, a kind of indomitable quality that he’ll never quit, he’s always up for the next thing. He’s like, ‘OK, that didn’t work out? We’ll do this and we’ll try something else. And Timothée Chalamet, what can I say? Sacrébleu! This kid, you know, he drips charisma and a wonderful confidence. He’s just a really delicious artist.”
Wonka is set for release ahead of the Christmas holiday on Dec. 15. CinemaCon, the convention for National Association of Theatre Owners, is being held inside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas through Thursday.
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