Wonka director explains how the film bridges the gap to the Gene Wilder movie

(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Wonka may be an origin story, but it doesn't fill in all the gaps – the character we see in director Paul King's festive musical, played by Timothée Chalamet, isn't quite the figure we know from Roald Dahl's novel and the 1971 movie starring Gene Wilder.

That version of Wonka, an older and more cynical chocolatier, allows a child to drown in a river of chocolate, after all, whereas this Willy is still all about helping others and self-sacrifice for the greater good. So, how does King think his film bridges that gap? And is there scope for further storytelling here?

"We were really interested in writing [Wonka] before he retreated behind the wall and just lives with the Oompa Loompas, as somebody who has that sense of optimism that you actually get from Willy Wonka at the end of the book and the end of the movies. He's actually done this very hopeful thing, to look for an heir or a child who he can give everything to – it's an extraordinary act of generosity," King explains to GamesRadar+ when we sit down with him and screenwriter Simon Farnaby at a central London hotel.

"So, we were interested in that nugget that lies at the heart of Willy Wonka's brittle exterior. We have ideas of where the layers of brittleness come from, but we were really interested in a story with just a hint of that toughness that comes towards the end of the movie when he takes on the villains."

Farnaby agrees. "He's certainly a wiser figure at the end, if not that cynical character he might become later," he tells us.

Wonka arrives in UK cinemas on December 8, before releasing in the US on December 15. In the meantime, check out Inside Total Film podcast later in the week.