Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2020 film) (Johnsonverse)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 2020 American-British-Canadian traditionally animated fantasy film written and directed by Tim Johnson, based on the 1964 book of the same name by Roald Dahl. It stars Eric Idle, Christopher Lloyd, John Cleese, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Heidi Klum, Dee Bradley Baker, Katey Sagal, Bob Saget, Carrie Fisher, Phil Hartman, Jacob Tremblay, Millie Bobby Brown, Mckenna Grace, Max Charles, Russi Taylor (in her final film role), Harry Shearer, Carol Burnett, Judi Dench, Lauren Lapkus, Kurtwood Smith, Patton Oswalt, and Patrick Stewart, and was released by Johnson Studios.

Production began in 2011. The film is the third film adaptation of the book after the 2005 film of the same name and the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and was released on November 1, 2020 to critical acclaim.

Plot
In a house near the chocolate factory owned by eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka (Eric Idle) lives a family known as the Buckets, consisting of four grandparents, two parents, and a little boy named Charlie (Jacob Tremblay), who

Cast

 * Eric Idle as Willy Wonka - Wonka, as with other adaptations, is a trickster who is sane in an unconventional way. Despite looking youthful, it is implied that Wonka is actually much older. He can also switch voices at the drop of a hat; his singing voice sounds nothing like his usual voice.
 * Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka's singing voice (archived audio)
 * Christopher Lloyd as Grandpa Joe -
 * John Cleese as Sir William Salt - The most famous man of the Salt pedigree, Sir William Salt is the father of Veruca. He is a stuffy but serious man who will do anything to please his daughter. When the four brats and their parents come out of the factory towards the end, Salt changes his opinion on his daughter and grounds her for three weeks, reminding her that she is no longer to be spoiled.
 * Catherine Zeta-Jones as Angina Salt - Louise is Veruca's mother. Despite being a snob, Angina stays calm during Veruca's many, many outbursts, and calls her "an adorable lady". She is a geography teacher, as a reference to the book.
 * Heidi Klum as Marlene Gloop - Marlene is Augustus' mother.
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Lukas Gloop - Lukas is the owner of the Gloops' butchery in Dusseldorf, known as Schlachterei-Kobold.
 * Katey Sagal as Wendy Teavee - Wendy is the mother of Mike.
 * Bob Saget as Kerry Teavee -
 * Carrie Fisher as Rose Beauregarde - Rose is Violet's mother. She is her daughter's sporting coach, much like her 2005 counterpart, and is a gold digger, as she married Jeffrey for his money. It's implied that she shaped Violet into what she is.
 * Phil Hartman as Jeffrey Beauregarde - Jeffrey is Violet's stepfather. He is depicted as a man who would do anything to make money. When the four brats and their parents come out of the factory towards the end, Jeffrey, disgusted with Violet's permanently purple skin, threatens to have her reality show canceled.
 * Jacob Tremblay as Charlie Bucket - In this adaptation, ten-year-old Charlie is sweet and kind,
 * Millie Bobby Brown as Veruca Salt - In this adaptation, twelve-year-old Veruca is even more mean-spirited than in the book or any adaptation, and chastizes Charlie for being poor. She's disgustingly rude, prissy, egotistical, ungrateful, immature, unpleasant, entitled, callous, extremely short-tempered, manipulative, and violent, resorting to various threats (such as telling her father to mortgage the Salts' nut factory when he tries to explain that searching for a Golden Ticket for her is bankrupting him) and even physical violence, even demanding an Oompa-Loompa like in the 1971 film though she demands ten of them, and is a severe mood-swinger, appearing to be sweet, cute and pleasant one minute, and devolving into a screaming rage the next, and has a fierce rivalry with Violet to the point of cheering when Violet reaches her blueberry state and openly insulting her and pushing her throughout the tour. She wears a dark pink dress over a short-sleeved, brighter pink blouse with a dark red bow tie ribbon with a brooch on it over the collar, with white stockings and black Mary Jane shoes, all worn under a pink-dyed mink coat (up until the moment the tourists enter the factory, and Wonka tells them to drop their coats anywhere). She also has blonde ringettes with jewelry and barrettes, and is depicted as ridiculously hammy and even says outright upon exiting the factory that she was going to sell Wonka's secrets to Slugworth before declaring she wants her own chocolate factory. Like in most adaptations, Veruca lives in England.
 * Mckenna Grace as Violet Beauregarde - In this adaptation, thirteen-year-old Violet is a fame-hungry pop culture icon and the star of a reality show titled The Real Life Beauregarde. Her gum-chewing habit has been turned into a cash cow by her stepfather, to the point of getting endorsements from multiple celebrities. Violet is even ruder than her 2005 counterpart, to the point of openly spitting on Charlie in the Chocolate Room, a huge motormouth with a horrble lack of manners (such as picking her nose several times), even more arrogant to the point of constantly calling herself "a real lady", openly insulting her so-called "best friend" Cornelia Prinzmetel in her interview, and is even more competitive to the point of winning more than 500 medals and trophies in every competitive sport possible, more medals and trophies than her 2005 counterpart. Her only redeeming quality is that she, like her 1971 counterpart, doesn't take kindly to Veruca's antics. She wears blue overalls, a double-layered shirt consisting of two shades of blue, and blue sneakers, with short red hair, and her blueberry form is even larger than that of the 2005 Violet, to the point of her limbs and head just barely coming in contact and coming so close to hitting her head in the approximately twenty-story-tall Inventing Room. Violet lives in Los Angeles, California.
 * Max Charles as Mike Teavee - In this adaptation, fourteen-year-old Mike is sarcastic, arrogant, and a troublemaker. He has TVs on every wall of his living room, and has another TV for his video games, which he's completely fixated on to the point of multitasking between his computer, TV and video games, as well as a laptop to track the location of the Golden Ticket. In the end, he only had to buy one candy bar. Mike lives in San Antonio, Texas. He wears a Clint Eastwood-like hat and also has several holsters with toy pistols in each of them, as a nod to the cowboy motif of his book and 1971 counterparts, though he otherwise wears more contemporary clothing (a black T-shirt with a skull on the left breast, and black ripped jeans).
 * Russi Taylor as Augustus Gloop - In this adaptation, eleven-year-old Augustus is even greedier and fatter than any of his other counterparts. He is depicted with pig-like features, and has won at least 25 eating contests in his homeland of Bavaria. He also has a habit of publicly burping and farting (though none of it is played for humor purposes). Like his 2005 counterpart, Augustus is aloof and cruel toward Charlie, though more cruel than ever, going so far as to insult him for being overly skinny, and even offering him a Wonka bar before immediately retracting it and saying, "Should've brought some then, you starving dummkopf". Augustus wears a gray blazer over a white shirt, a black necktie, and dark brown lederhosen shorts with long white socks and brown leather shoes. He also has a pet pig, shown during his interview.
 * Harry Shearer as Grandpa George -
 * Carol Burnett as Grandma Georgina -
 * Judi Dench as Grandma Josephine -
 * Lauren Lapkus as Diane Bucket -
 * Kurtwood Smith as Daniel Bucket -
 * Patton Oswalt as the Candy Store Owner -
 * Tabitha St. Germain as Charlotte Russe - Charlotte is a 15-year-old girl from Russia. She, along with her father, create a fake Golden Ticket.
 * Maurice LaMarche as Nikolav Russe - Nikolav is a Russian media mogul. His reputation is destroyed when it's revealed that he and his daughter forged a Golden Ticket.
 * Patrick Stewart as the Narrator -
 * Lee Tockar, Rebecca Shoichet, Kathleen Barr, Andrew Toth, Eric Bauza, Ian James Corlett, Trevor Devall, Jennifer Hale, Michael Donovan, Melissa Altro, Darren Dunstan, Jeannie Elias, Cathy Weseluck, Andrew Francis, Brian Drummond, Cree Summer, Garry Chalk, Erin Fitzgerald, Samuel Vincent, and Ashleigh Ball as the Oompa-Loompas - In this version, the Oompa-Loompas are depicted how they are in post-1972 printings of the book, with white skin and golden hair, albeit in factory uniforms inspired by the uniforms worn by the 1971 Oompa-Loompas, as well as the Lollipop Guild in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz in lieu of their jungle clothes.
 * Andrea Libman as the German Reporter -
 * David Tennant as the British Reporter -
 * Tara Strong as the California Reporter -
 * Johnny Hardwick as the Texas Reporter -
 * Pasha D. Lychnikoff as the Russian Reporter -
 * Tim Johnson as the News Anchor -
 * Andrew Anthony as the News Announcer -
 * Nicole Oliver, Madeline Peters, Ben Schwartz, Jill Talley, and Tom Kenny as bystanders -
 * Amitabh Bachchan as Prince Pondicherry -
 * Tress MacNeille as Kobold - Kobold is the mascot of Schlachterei-Kobold. He is Augustus' pet pig.

Development
The film was conceived in 2011. In a deal with the estate of Roald Dahl,

Animation
The animation is provided by Walt Disney Animation Studios, which used cel animation, along with the multiplane camera to create a sense of depth.

Casting
For Willy Wonka, Tim decided to cast comedian Jim Carrey, who Tim considered to be "the perfect fit for such an insane character". Russi Taylor was cast as Augustus Gloop based on her role as Üter Zörker from The Simpsons; she recorded her lines before her death on July 26, 2019.

Music
With the exception of "Pure Imagination" (taken from the 1971 film, using a performance Gene Wilder personally recorded in 2006 for Sheldon Johnson, Jr. in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the 1971 film for a private screening with his friends due to Tim feeling that Wilder was "irreplaceable" in that song), every song in the film is taken from the book. The song Wonka sings in the tunnel scene includes the added lyrics from the 1971 film as well, also using a recording Wilder did in 2006 up to and including the line "Is a hurricane a-blowing?". Johnson got special permission from Wilder's estate to use both recordings.

The film is scored by composer Michael Tavera. Tim wanted a composer who could "capture the whimsical feel of the 1971 film while still making it his own". The music is performed by the Johnson Philharmonic Orchestra in conjunction with the London Symphony Orchestra and several other freelance orchestras, as Tim wanted a "rich and vibrant sound" for the film.

Release
The film is set to release on November 1, 2020 through Netflix (it was going to be released in theaters before the COVID-19 pandemic).