An Official Statement on the New ‘Wonka’ Movie

A lot of us on the Wonka message boards — The Factory, r/Slugworth, Gloop’s Troops, and Veruca’s Alt — have spent a majority of the holiday season bracing for impact in anticipation of Wonka being released wide on Friday. General consensus is that this Timotheé Chalamet vehicle is absolutely not canon and will be an even bigger dropoff than when they traded in Gene Wilder for Johnny Depp in a remake that never should have been green-lit.

To be clear, this is simply a stance built on principle and not driven by any animosity or disrespect to Chalamet or his co-stars. And anyway, we’re confident he’ll be fine. Hugh Grant, who plays an Oompa Loompa, however, may not.

Here he is promoting the film for French audiences and informing them, in their native tongue, about what they can expect to see in the motion picture. Who knew so much could be conveyed in five short words?

Je joue le Oompa Loompa.

There have been a lot of people in my life imploring me to give this movie a chance. They argue that it can be a nice little addition to the 1971 original, which is one of the best pieces of cinema ever to be cinema-ed. It is the most magical time of the year, after all.

But you know what? If I don’t see it. Hell, if none of us commit to not seeing it — we can argue that it never existed in the first place.