As Warner Bros describes it, "Wonka will focus on a young Willy Wonka and his adventures prior to opening the world's most famous chocolate factory. In addition to Chalamet, the cast includes Keegan-Michael Key, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Olivia Colman, Jim Carter and Tom Davis. Directing is Padington's Paul King, with a screenplay by King and Simon Farnaby. The producers include David Heyman, who guided the Harry Potter film series.
Back in 2016 when the film was in development, Heyman mused, “It’s not a remake. They’ve done two films, quite different. But it’s possibly an origin story. We’re just in the early stages of it. I’m a huge Roald Dahl fan. I’ve been trying to work on Dahl material for quite some time but they’re all tied up. So when this was suggested, I didn’t take a moment to pause and want to jump right in. It’s challenging, because you don’t have Dahl, you don’t have a Dahl book, and yet you have a Dahl character. But I think there’s a lot in his character that suggests who he is and also where he might come from or what his childhood or his middle age might have been like. So we’re exploring that. We’re discussing it. We’re in the very early stages and very excited about what lies ahead.”
More recently, Chalamet himself explained, "It’s not mining the darker emotions in life. It’s a celebration of being off-center and of being okay with the weirder parts of you that don’t quite fit in.”
Wonka is scheduled to be released March 17, 2023.