20 facts you might not know about 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' (2024)

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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a book by Roald Dahl, an oft-adapted writer. However, by 1971, only one Dahl story had been adapted to film. That was 36 Hours, a thriller based on one of Dahl’s short stories for adults. This was the first full book adapted to the big screen.

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Mel Stuart is a director who, with all due respect, would not be remembered if not for Willy Wonka. In fact, most people still probably don’t know the director of the movie. Stuart’s daughter had read Dahl’s book, and that gave the director the idea to pitch the adaptation to a producer friend of his.

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The producer in question was David L. Wolper. As luck would, inexplicably, have it, Wolper was working with Quaker Oats. The producer and the company wanted a way to introduce a new candy bar. That became Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and the candy bar in question became known as the Wonka Bar. Yes, this film basically exists to sell chocolate.

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Wolper decided to allow the book’s author, Dahl, to write the screenplay. It was not his first work in this realm. A friend of Ian Fleming, Dahl, had previously contributed to the screenplays for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and You Only Live Twice, the latter of which is a James Bond movie.

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Reportedly, when production was about to start, Dahl had not finished the screenplay. He had outlined the story, but the script wasn’t there. Wolper had to look elsewhere. David Seltzer, who would go on to write screenplays for The Omen and Punchline, among others, did extensive rewrites, and sitcom writer Robert Kaufman did some rewrites as well. However, Dahl got sole screenplay credit, even though he left the project due to creative differences.

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Willy Wonka is, famously, a musical. Of course, books are rarely musicals. There’s not a lot of point to writing songs into a book. Wolper and Stuart decided their film should be a musical and turned to Richard Rodgers and Henry Mancini, hoping they would compose. They declined. In the end, Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley got the job.

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With Dahl ceding the work of his adaptation to Seltzer and Kaufman, changes were made to his book. One key one involves Slugworth. In the book, he’s barely a blip in the story and is one of Wonka’s rivals. Seltzer boosted his role and made him a spy (who ends up not being a spy) to create a villain for the story. Additionally, the Oompa-Loompas were given their distinct orange skin tone and green hair because, in the books, they were African pygmies, and the optics of that would have been, um, quite poor.

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While the book’s title name-checks Charlie Bucket, the film headlines Willy Wonka, a more dynamic character. A lot of British actors were interested. Every member of Monty Python was reportedly interested but not considered big enough in America. Dahl wanted Spike Milligan for the role, while Peter Sellers actively petitioned Dahl for the role. In terms of the actual production, Fred Astaire was in the mix but deemed too old at 72. The guy who came closest was Joel Grey, but then Stuart got cold feet about casting a 5’5’’ actor in the role.

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Unable to cast the role, Wolper and Stuart held auditions in New York. Both the producer and director said that the second Wilder walked in, they knew he was the guy for the part. “He had the sardonic, demonic edge that we were looking for,” said Stuart. Wolper ran the actor down in the hall after his audition to offer him the role.

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Wilder was interested in playing Wonka, but he had a couple of requests. One, he had specific ideas for Wonka’s costume. His biggest condition for taking the part came down to Wonka’s introduction. It was his idea for Willy Wonka to make his entrance into the film walking slowly with a cane, then leaving the cane behind, doing a somersault, and getting up with a spring in his step. Stuart asked why, and Wilder replied, “From that time on, no one will know if I'm lying or telling the truth.” It was agreed upon.

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Jean Stapleton, best known as Edith Bunker onAll in the Family, was offered the role of Mrs. Teevee but turned it down. Additionally, Thurston Howell himself, Jim Backus, was considered for Mr. Beauregarde, but he didn’t end up getting the role.

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Bill, the owner of the candy shop, is not a large role, but a sizable star wanted it. That would be Sammy Davis Jr., but Davis was considered too famous for the part, with the fear being that he would distract audiences. Eventually, Davis would record his own version of Bill’s big song, “The Candy Man.” Davis’ version became a No. 1 hit. Interestingly, Newley, one of the composers of that song, wanted to play Bill, but he was told no for unknown reasons.

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Hundreds of kids were auditioned for Willy Wonka. While none of them had any real movie experiences, most of them had done acting on television and in commercials. The one exception was Michael Bollner, who played Augustus Gloop. He was found during location scouting. To be fair, Augustus is in the film for, like, five minutes?

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You may just think of Jack Albertson as Grandpa Joe, but the guy had a great career before being cast in the film. He had won both a Tony and an Oscar prior to being in Willy Wonka. That’s not all! After the film came out, he won an Emmy for the sitcom Chico and the Man.

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Bollner was found during location scouting because Willy Wonka was shot in Germany. Munich, to be specific. In fact, Wonka’s chocolate factory was a gasworks building in Munich, and that building is still standing to this day.

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Stuart often kept people in the dark to try to get authenticity from the performers, especially the kid actors. For example, most of the kid actors were seeing the set of the Chocolate Room for the first time on camera. Additionally, the infamous tunnel scene was sprung on the actors as well. Other than Wilder, we assume.

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How did Julie Dawn Cole spend her 13th birthday? Doing Veruca Salt’s big song “I Want it Now.” In fact, she spent it doing it over and over. Cole did 36 takes of “I Want It Now” that day before Stuart moved on.

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It’s now an iconic film, but Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory came and went in the blink of an eye when it was released in 1971. The film was made for $3 million and made $4 million worldwide. Domestically, it finished a mere 24th in the box office.

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Willy Wonkawould remain a relatively obscure film for years. In fact, in 1977, Paramount declined to renew the movie’s distribution rights. The rights then went to, no joke, Quaker Oats. Quaker Oats didn’t want to be involved in the film business any longer, so it sold the rights to Warner Bros. for $500,000. It started airing on TV repeatedly and then was released on VHS in the 1980s, which is when its reputation began to pick up. In 1996, the film was re-released in theaters for its 25th anniversary. This time, it made $21 million.

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Willy Wonka and his affinity for candy have hit the big screen a couple of times since the 1970s. In 2005, Tim Burton did his own adaptation of Dahl’s book, this time keeping the title of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . Johnny Depp played Wonka that time around. It was…received with resigned acceptance? Then, because no I.P. goes unmined in 2020s Hollywood, a prequel film called Wonka came out in 2023. It starred Timothee Chalamet as a young Wonka and Hugh Grant as an Oompa-Loompa.