Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
original film poster
Directed by	Tim Burton
Produced by	Brad Grey Richard D. Zanuck
Written by	John August Roald Dahl (book)
Starring	Johnny Depp Freddie Highmore David Kelly Helena Bonham Carter Deep Roy Christopher Lee
Music by	Danny Elfman
Cinematography	Philippe Rousselot
Editing by	Chris Lebenzon
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	July 15, 2005
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United Kingdom/  United States
Language	English
Budget	$150 million
Gross revenue	$475 million
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 2005 film, based on the 1964 Roald Dahl children's novel of the same name. The film was directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket. This is the second film adaptation of the book, after 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, directed by Mel Stuart and starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka and Peter Ostrum as Charlie Bucket. Upon its release, it became a box office success and received positive critical reaction. It received an Academy Award nomination in 2006 for Best Costume Design.

Plot

In a chocolate factory, a gloved hand (Willy Wonka's) lays Golden Tickets on five chocolate bars, which are wrapped with other bars into trucks across the world. Near the factory, Charlie Bucket lives in a small shack with his parents and all four grandparents. Their only income comes from his father, who screws on caps at a toothpaste factory called Smilex. Grandpa Joe then tells Charlie about the time he worked for Wonka at the factory and the palace made out of chocolate for Prince Pondicherry, who let it melt in the boiling sun after ignoring Wonka's advice to eat it; when the prince requested a new one, Wonka could not build it for him because of his own problems concerning spies who had infiltrated the factory. It was because of these spies that Wonka closed his factory and fired all his workers. Then, it inexplicably re-opened, though no new workers had been hired.

The next day, Charlie hears about a major contest to be held for a chance to see it firsthand: Willy Wonka has announced worldwide that five Golden Tickets have been placed in five Wonka Bars, and that the finder of each of these tickets will be given a full tour of the factory, along with one parent, and a lifetime's supply of chocolate. In addition to this, one of the five ticket-holders will be given a special prize at the end of the tour. Unfortunately, the increased sale of chocolate causes a rise in cavities, which in turn boosts the sale of toothpaste; with the increased profits, the toothpaste factory decides to modernize, and buys a new machine that eliminates Mr. Bucket's job. Charlie's birthday soon arrives, and he opens his yearly chocolate bar, which does not have a Golden Ticket. Grandpa Joe gives Charlie some money to buy another bar, but it also does not contain a ticket. Charlie finds a ten-dollar note in the snow and decides to buy a chocolate bar, which contains the fifth golden ticket. Charlie considers selling the ticket to make money for his family, but Grandpa George convinces him to keep the ticket and go to the factory.

The next morning, Charlie and his Grandpa Joe arrive for the tour, and are greeted by an automated puppet show that breaks down. During a tour of the factory, the first four ticket-winning children are one by one tempted by something, relating to their own character flaws, causing a strange accident that eliminates the child and their worried accompanying parent from the tour. The Oompa-Loompas sing a song of morality after each demise. Augustus Gloop drinks from the chocolate river in the Chocolate Room and is sucked away by a pipe that leads to the Fudge Room. Competitive gum chewer Violet Beauregarde chews an experimental piece of Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum, but the effects of the blueberry pie within it turn her into a giant blueberry. Spoiled Veruca Salt tries to steal a squirrel in the Nut Sorting Room, where she is deemed a "bad nut" by the squirrels and thrown down the garbage chute along with her father. Mike Teavee, who is obsessed with violent television and video games, teleports himself over Mr. Wonka's TV waves, shrinking him down to miniature size, and is taken to the taffy pulling room to be stretched back to normal. They were all punished as the audience will see when they come out of the factory in the end.

After Mike Teavee's departure, Willy Wonka invites Charlie to come live in the factory and work with him. The only catch is that Charlie must abandon his family in order to accept the arrangement, because, in Mr. Wonka's opinion, family members only tell one what to do, and a chocolatier needs complete creative freedom. It transpires that Wonka's dentist father, Dr. Wilbur Wonka, denied him chocolate and candies because of the potential risk to his teeth. After finally sneaking in a piece of chocolate, he became obsessed with it, dreaming of becoming a chocolatier. Despite his father's wishes and threats, Wonka ran away from home to follow his dreams. As his family is the most important thing in his life, Charlie refuses the offer. Charlie's family is living contently a while later, as his father gets a new job maintaining the machine that performs his old job. Later, Wonka encounters Charlie, who is now a shoe-shine boy and asks him to join him in confronting his own father. The Wonkas reconcile, and Wonka Jr. finally realizes the value of family. Charlie's house and family are relocated to the factory's Chocolate Room. In the end, Charlie has the chocolate factory and Wonka has a family.

Cast

• Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket: A poor boy who lives with his parents and four grandparents in a tiny, rickety shack in a large city. Charlie loves chocolate, especially Willy Wonka's chocolate, but his family can only afford to get him one bar a year, on his birthday. He does not complain about his life, and is a goodhearted boy.
• Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka: The greatest chocolate maker in the world. He closed his factory, fired all of his workers, and replaced them with natives of Loompaland because of his fear of corporate spies working in the pay of other, less successful companies. He sends out five Golden Tickets and allowed five children to visit the factory in order to find an heir after finding a grey hair. He is intelligent, but has stunted social skills that render him extremely bizarre to most people from the "outside world", due to his unhappy childhood and the long isolation from the world since the factory's closure.
• Deep Roy as The Oompa-Loompas: They are Wonka's little factory workers from Loompaland, an uncharted land. They had a horrible life in Loompaland until Willy Wonka arrived, who promised them an infinite supply of their favourite food, cacao beans, if they agreed to work in his factory. Deep Roy was multiplied several times to play all of them.
• David Kelly as Grandpa Joe: A former worker at Wonka's factory, he is Charlie's paternal grandfather and despite spending ten years in a bed, he is able enough to accompany Charlie during his visit to the factory.
• Jordan Fry as Mike Teavee: A tech-savvy boy who is obsessed with television and violent video games. He got a Golden Ticket by hacking into the Wonka Computer Mainframe, and only had to buy one bar after finding its location. He does not like chocolate and has very little patience, due to playing so many video games, and a superiority complex over mostly everyone.
• AnnaSophia Robb as Violet Beauregarde: A girl who is constantly chewing gum, and is very competitive, thanks to, in part, her competitive mother, Scarlett. Besides gum-chewing, she is also a practitioner of the martial arts. She takes part in the Golden Ticket contest because her mother wants her to win at everything.
• Julia Winter as Veruca Salt: A spoiled, snobby rich girl from Great Britain who is given practically anything she wants from her parents. After insisting that her rich father find her a ticket, he turned his nut factory into a candy unwrapping plant until the ticket was found. Is finally denied something at the end of the film.
• Philip Wiegratz as Augustus Gloop: A gluttonous German overeater, found his ticket by accident (and accidentally bit one corner off) on an eating binge. He eats so much candy per day that it was "almost impossible for him not to find a ticket."
• Missi Pyle as Mrs. Scarlett Beauregarde: Violet's overbearing mother who wants her daughter to win at everything.
• James Fox as Mr. Salt: Veruca's wealthy father who owns a nut-shelling factory and does whatever it takes to get what his daughter wants. However, he finally denies her something as they're leaving the factory.
• Franziska Troegner as Mrs. Gloop: Augustus' equally-gluttonous mother.
• Adam Godley as Mr. Teavee: Mike's nervous father who teaches geography in high school.
• Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Bucket: Charlie's mother.
• Noah Taylor as Mr. Bucket: Charlie's father who works hard to keep the family warm and healthy.
• Christopher Lee as Dr. Wilbur Wonka: Willy Wonka's strict father whom we see in flashbacks. He is a dentist that banned his son from eating candies, and also caused him to wear large braces. One Halloween night, after Willy came back from his trick or treat trip, Dr. Wonka lectured his son about the dangers of sweets, especially on the allergy of chocolate.
• Danny Elfman as Ooompa Loompa Vocals: The voice behind the Oompa Loompa singing.

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures bought the rights to a film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 1999, with Gary Ross attached to direct and Scott Frank writing. John C. Reilly expressed interest in playing Willy Wonka, and in 2001 Marilyn Manson claimed to have been cast in the role. Ross left in 2001, and Rob Minkoff and Martin Scorsese were negotiated with to direct, while Gwyn Lurie began rewriting the script in February 2002.^[1] On May 26 2003, Tim Burton was hired to direct,^[1] and he was annoyed by the previous drafts in portraying Wonka as a father figure to Charlie Bucket.^[2] He commissioned Pamela Pettler and then John August, who he had worked with on Corpse Bride and Big Fish respectively, to pen new drafts to his satisfaction.^[1]

There were dozens and dozens of names thrown out for a role in the film, it holds notstarring.com's top spot (notstarring.com is a website that reports roles actors turned down and were considered for). Amongst the names in a reliable source are Jim Carrey and Nicolas Cage [1] and Michael Keaton and Christopher Walken [2], Patrick Stewart revealed on the May 25 2006 edition of the B105 Morning Crew that he auditioned for the role. Producers of the film favoured Robert De Niro but Burton was set on casting Johnny Depp [3]. In 2003, young british actor Freddie Highmore was cast in the role as Charlie Bucket. At the same time Johnny Depp was cast as Willy Wonka. Filming completed in fall 2004

Music

The original music score was written by Danny Elfman, whose collaborations with director Tim Burton include Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Mars Attacks!, Big Fish, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride and others. Elfman's score is based around three primary themes--a gentle family theme for the Buckets, generally set in upper woodwinds; a mystical, string-driven waltz for Willy Wonka; and a hyper-upbeat factory theme for full orchestra, Elfman's homemade synth samples and the diminutive chanting voices of the Oompa-Loompas.

Elfman also wrote and performed the vocals for four songs. The lyrics to the Oompa-Loompa songs are adapted from the original book, and are thus credited to Roald Dahl. Each song in the score is designed to reflect a different archetype. "Wonka's Welcome Song" is a maddeningly cheerful theme park ditty, "Augustus Gloop" a Bollywood spectacle; "Violet Beauregarde" is 1970s funk, "Veruca Salt" is 1960s bubble-gum pop / psychedelia; and "Mike Teavee" is a tribute to late 1970s British pop (such as Queen) / early 1980s hair bands.

The original motion picture soundtrack was released on July 12, 2005 on Warner Home Video Records. The following songs appear on the album:

1. "Wonka's Welcome Song"
2. "Augustus Gloop"
3. "Violet Beauregarde"
4. "Veruca Salt"
5. "Mike Teavee"
6. "Main Titles"
7. "Wonka's First Shop"
8. "The Indian Palace"
9. "Wheels in Motion"
10. "Charlie's Birthday Bar"
11. "The Golden Ticket/Factory"
12. "Chocolate Explorers"
13. "Loompa Land"
14. "The Boat Arrives"
15. "The River Cruise"
16. "First Candy"
17. "Up and Out"
18. "The River Cruise - Part 2"
19. "Charlie Declines"
20. "Finale"
21. "End Credit Suite"

Release

The televised and HD DVD version of the film contains one line of dialogue between Mr. Salt and Mr. Teavee that was in neither the theatrical release nor the DVD release. Upon entering the chocolate factory Mr. Teavee remarks that Willy seems to be "a few quarters short of a buck." Mr. Salt responds, "I'm sorry, I don't speak American." Also, in the Chocolate Room scene where the Oompa Loompas were performing the Augustus Gloop song, the extra verse in that song as well as an extra scene was shown as well, as this also did not appear on the DVD release.

Reception

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released in the United States and Canada on July 15, 2005. In its opening weekend it earned US$55.4 million at the North American box office and went on to gross $475 million in worldwide box office receipts. It was released on DVD on November 8, 2005. On its release, the film received generally favorable reviews. The average was 84% positive on Rotten Tomatoes[4], and earned a score of 73 from Metacritic[5]. According to Rotten Tomatoes the 1971 Version has a higher rating by both critics and Rotten Tomato reviewers, though the 1971 film's score is gleaned from a much smaller sampling than the 2005 film.

Gene Wilder, who played Willy Wonka in the 1971 film, initially opposed this version, stating it "is all about money. It's just some people sitting around thinking 'How can we make some more money?' Why else would you remake Willy Wonka?" [6] There have been some criticisms of racism, colonialism, slavery, and group stereotyping similar to those received by the original 1964 book, in which the Oompa-Loompas were described as dark-skinned pygmies from the African jungle.[7][8] [9]

References

• August, John. "Did I ever watch the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?", johnaugust.com (2004). Retrieved July 19, 2005.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

• Official website
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Internet Movie Database
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Rotten Tomatoes
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Box Office Mojo
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Yahoo!
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film page on the Tim Burton Collective fan site

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