Johnny Depp is everywhere lately, isn't he? Public Enemies is in theaters now, the trailer for Alice in Wonderland was just released, and now it's been announced that he is going to be starring in Dark Shadows. I love Johnny Depp (and Tim Burton), so I'm thrilled about all of this. In fact, it made me want to revisit another one of their collaborations.
Check out the costumes the kids are wearing during Willy's Halloween flashback - three of them are wearing costumes that look like Lock, Shock, and Barrel, Oogie Boogie's evil helpers in A Nightmare Before Christmas. You have to look quick though - they run by at the very beginning of the scene from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen. When the gang is riding down the chocolate river just after they see the "Whipped Cream" room, they pass a room labeled "Jelly Beans." If you pause it and go into slo-mo, you'll see that the next room is labeled "Beetle Juicing."
If you love bad puns, you'll love this one - you probably remember the scene where the group is touring the factory and they make a brief stop at the secretary, who is also an Oompa Loompa played by Deep Roy. The title plaque on her desk says "Taste Accountant." It's a silly little reference to the phrase, "There's no accounting for taste." Apparently, there is! In the edible meadow scene, the tube that vacuums the chocolate up from the lake is stuck into a flying saucer-looking thing, which is because it is. It's actually one of the saucers from Burton's Mars Attacks. People who were considered for the role of Willy Wonka: Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, John Cleese, Robert DeNiro (can you imagine?!), Michael Keaton, Marilyn Manson, Leslie Nielsen, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Patrick Stewart, Ben Stiller, Will Smith and Robin Williams. A bunch of famous T.V. dads were considered for the role of Mike Teavee's dad - Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson), Tim Allen (Tim Taylor), Ed O'Neill (Al Bundy), Bob Saget (Danny Tanner), and Ray Romano (Ray Barone), among others.
Some of the other buttons in the Glass Elevator: Fragile Egos, Spewed Vegetables, Root Beer Googles, Nice Plums, Secretarial Poodles. Heart-Shaped Lungs, People Poo and Blackberry Sausages. When Willy and the kids are checking out all of Wonka's various candy-making rooms, they pass one with a bunch of pink sheep. "I don't want to talk about it," Wonka remarks. This is a reference to Ed Wood, another Burton and Depp collaboration - real-life director Ed Wood had a thing for wearing pink angora sweaters. The actress who plated Grandma Georgina said she had her pick of which grandma to play. After reading the whole script, she picked Grandma Georgina because she's the one who gets to kiss Johnny Depp. I like the way that lady thinks. Willy Wonka's cane is filled with Nerds candy. The little boy who played Augustus Gloop wore a fat suit for the role. A bunch of people saw the similarities between Willy Wonka and Michael Jackson after the movie came out. Tim Burton begged to differ. "Michael Jackson likes children; Willy Wonka can't stand them. To me that's a huge difference." Depp agreed and said that his inspiration was somewhere between Howard Hughes in his later years and Mr. Rogers. Martin Scorsese almost directed the film, but ended up doing The Aviator instead. Mr. Bucket works for a company that makes Smilex toothpaste, which you can see early on when it shows a shot of him taking the misshapen toothpaste caps from the assembly line. "Smylex" is also the name of the poison the Joker releases on the city in the Burton-directed Batman.
The squirrels in the Nut Room scene are real - at least, 40 of them are. The animals were trained every day for nearly three months so that the close shots in that scene would look realistic. It also provided reality for the kids instead of forcing them to work with a green screen and CGI. Johnny Depp ad-libbed the line where he's talking to Mike Teavee about the types of people who would want to have long hair and slips into jive talk. To be exact, it's "It's in the fridge, daddy-o! Are you hip to the jive? Can you dig what I'm layin' down? I knew that you could. Slide me some skin, soul brother!" The first time he did it, the actor who plays Mike looked at him like he was nuts and said, "That's not in the script." Deep Roy is the one who suggested that the Augustus Gloop dance scene be like a big Bollywood musical scene. The chocolate river was originally going to be CGI, but they tried that and Burton didn't like the way it looked. So after testing nine different chocolates for their color, 192,000 gallons of it were used to make a real chocolate river. It looks great, sure, but apparently after a couple of weeks it started to smell quite bad. Johnny Depp tested out Wonka's slightly lispy, aloof voice on his daughter while they were playing Barbies. She liked it, so he went with it. What do you like better - this version or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the Gene Wilder version? Have a movie suggestion, or just want to read my babble? I'm on Twitter.
also, to SenorMysterioso, this was not a remake of the gene wilder film, it was an adaptation of the original book. check out the book and you will see how awful gene wilder played wonka. not the depp was perfect, but he was MUCH closer to how he was in the book.
No disrespect to Gene Wilder, but the first one never lived up to the book(s) for me.
That's perhaps the oddest sentence I've ever read.
also, to everyone else...
IT IS NOT A REMAKE!! It is a new adaptation of an old book, they were not remaking the wilder film, thus is NOT a remake.
Apparently Fred Astaire was considered for the role at one point. He would have been an interesting choice, but it would have been an entirely different movie: sweet rather than twisted, which is what Wilder gave it. I read somewhere that Wilder accepted the role on the condition that he could do that fake fall at his introduction, after limping up to the gate on his cane.
The Depp version, I prefer it's humor more. The oompa loompas aren't as scary either.
I don't want to talk about it. XD
“It’s in the fridge, daddy-o! Are you hip to the jive? Can you dig what I’m layin’ down? I knew that you could. Slide me some skin, soul brother!”
seems to be an homage to Gene Wilder. He said those lines in Silver Streak, when he was trying to disguise himself as a black man with Richard Pryor's help.
That's pretty sweet.
and i don't care how many movies they make- tim burton and johnny depp are always awesome!
And to be honest, with Burton and Depp, I was expecting this version to be MORE creepy and psychotic and unnerving than Wilder's version (in subtext at least), and it was less so.
Wah-wah-wah. Coming from someone who's read the book and loved it as a child, I prefer the way the original translates the spirit if not the letter of Dahl's genius. Those who think that good adaptations are literal adaptations doesn't understand the difference between books and film.
It's all about the heart, and Wolper's version has that in spades. It's also far more menacing in a much more subversive way, which preserves Dahl's intent in a completely different and completely complementary way.
THIS is what makes the original a better film. Dahl is meant to scare you.
When I first saw the Tim Burton version, I hated it. However, I've grown more fond of it over time, and now I can appreciate it as its own film.
Deep Roy just skeeved me. Depp disappointed. I fell asleep watching the remake, TWICE.
I remember reading a blurb in a magazine about the then PLANNED "remakes" (quotes because that's what it stated in the article)of Wonka, and, another favorite movie of mine, "Rock 'n' Roll High School", and really wanting to see both. I now thank the studio powers that be that the remake of "R'n'RHS" hasn't happened. Who would/could replace The Ramones in a remake? Maybe the Beastie Boys.
Which reminds me... both the Ramones AND "Rock 'n' Roll High School" would make for excellent Trivia topics.
+1
NO ONE HAS MENTIONED THE SONGS! I'm a huge Elfman fan, but those songs were un-likeable, un-rememberable, had no heart, no humor, simply AWFUL.
The new vs. old Oompa-loompas argument is a wash. BOTH versions are creepy.
BTW is there really only one Johnny Depp? I find it very hard to believe that this is the same guy as the one who played Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Carribean. In every role, he looks to be some other guy, also very different from the guy with glasses that he always shows up as, in real life.
I love Johnny Depp, but his performance here is atrocious. Gene Wilder inhabited the role perfectly, with just the right balance of screwball comedy and barely-contained menace. Depp doesn't even come close to finding those notes.
And for those who complain that the 1971 film deviates too far from the book, well, the screenplay was written by none other than Mr. Roald Dahl himself, so apparently the author though that the novel as written needed some modification if it was to translate to the screen well. Judging by these two films, it's hard to argue with that.
Every time I see the original on TV, I am compelled to watch it to the end. The new remake? Meh! Had to force myself to watch it once.
I love Time Burton and Johnny Depp, but Gene Wilder freaked me out as a kid (just like the book), so he will always be the best.
"Roald Dahl was reportedly so angry with the treatment of his book (mainly stemming from the massive rewrite by David Seltzer) that he refused permission for the book's sequel, "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator", to be filmed. Seltzer had an idea for a new sequel, but legal issues meant that it never got off the ground."
"Stories concerning author Roald Dahl's immense dissatisfaction with this film are legendary; in fact, he was so unhappy that he refused to ever watch the completed film in its entirety. Once, while staying in a hotel, he accidentally tuned into a television airing of the movie, but reportedly changed the channel immediately when he realized what he was watching."
Dahl HATED WW&TCF. that's why his estate had it remade. Not to mention that it deviates so completely from the source material. Wonka magically likes kids, is a father figure, Charlie behaves badly but still gets rewarded. the entire crux and journey of the characters were changed. it's a bad adaptation of the book. it's a decent film.
i prefer the remake for numerous reasons.
oh my gosh the first time I made the connection between Jack and Wonka I laughed at myself four three minutes straight!!!
anyway, I agree on the songs. the originals were really good. for these, you couldn't remember a single word.