Just four months after he was officially cast as Willy Wonka in the upcoming Warner Bros. prequel film Wonka, Timothée Chalamet took to Instagram to share a first-look image of himself as the iconic candy-maker.
“The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last,” Chalamet captioned a photo of his character behind a camera on the set of director Paul King’s movie.
Officially announced earlier this year, the film will debut in theaters in March 2023 and is set to follow a young Wonka before he opens his chocolate factory. Back in January, one of Wonka’s producers, David Heyman, hinted at the prequel’s story while chatting with Collider.
“We are still trying to figure out how to tell that story, what the story is,” Heyman said. “It’s a prequel, it’s not a sequel. What makes Willy-when we find him at the chocolate factory doing the golden ticket, where is he before that? What leads him to that place where he’s locked himself away? It’s how does he get there? So we’re playing around with that. It’s not a remake… But it’s possibly an origin story.”
Along with Chalamet, the cast includes Keegan Michael-Key, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, and Olivia Colman.
Wonka will be WB’s third go at an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic 1964 novel. The first release, 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, starred Gene Wilder in the titular role. In 2005, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released with Johnny Depp starring as Wonka and Tim Burton in the director’s chair.
