According to a recent report from Collider, Warner Bros. has narrowed its list to three names to play Willy Wonka in its upcoming prequel film. The trio includes Donald Glover, Ezra Miller, and Ryan Gosling.
News of the chocolatier’s reboot first broke in 2016, with Paul King attached to direct. King’s previous work on the stellar Paddington movies show that he has an eye for making bubbly, intelligent children’s films.
Gosling is arguably the most tenured of the three actors, but Glover and Miller both have recent experience in the prequel industry. Miller will make his second appearance as Credence Barebone this year in the Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Glover portrayed a young Billy Dee Williams in the recent Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Glover showed in Solo that he can pull off an evocation of a character instead of an imitation. Young Lando has no baritone delivery but he has the same charm and twinkle in the eye. According to the report, Glover has also been chasing the role of Young Wonka.
The IMDB plot description says that the film will go over “his early adventures, specifically focus on a young Willy Wonka and how he met the Oompa-Loompas on one of his earlier adventures.” Gene Wilder’s Wonka became legendary by capturing childlike imagination through magical unpredictability. A common risk of making a prequel is to reveal answers to questions that no one has even asked. Has anyone ever cared how Wonka met the Oompa-Loompas? The larger risk Warner Bros. is taking is losing the magic of Wonka himself by pulling back the curtain.
No date or title has been set for the release of the Willy Wonka project.
