The first trailer for Paul King’s lavish reboot Wonka has just dropped, and as expected, the internet is already obsessing over Timothée Chalamet’s upcoming portrayal of the character.
Gene Wilder left some mighty big shoes behind to fill following his definitive performance in the 1970s classic, while Johnny Depp has many supporters of his own after channeling Michael Jackson for his turn in the 2004 blockbuster. And yet, we’ll never get over the casting that could have been but never was.
On a fateful day in July of 2020, none other than Dwayne Johnson took to Instagram upon showing his kids Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for the very first time, where he dropped a revelation that could have shaken cinema down to its very core had it come to fruition.
“Some cool history – back in the early 2000’s, iconic director, Tim Burton had considered me to play Willy Wonka is his remake, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I remember thinking “HOLY SH*T, IM IN.” But that was many years ago when I was just starting out in Hollywood with no foundation of global box office strength or any real acting experience to even pull it off.”
The mere thought of The Rock overseeing an empire of oompa loompas and running a candy conglomerate is enough to make your head spin, which is precisely why that’s the exact version of Burton’s film we should have gotten.
The filmmaker partnering up with Depp to be weird together is always novel, but everyone had seen it plenty of times before. On the other hand, Johnson heading up Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a ridiculously jacked Willy Wonka is so completely and utterly unhinged that it would have at the very least been a fascinating disaster.
