Paddington 2 director Paul King is planning a… | Little White Lies

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Padding­ton 2 direc­tor Paul King is plan­ning a Willy Won­ka movie

14 Feb 2018

Words by Joel Down

A man with curly hair wearing a purple coat, bow tie, and hat smiling at the camera.
A man with curly hair wearing a purple coat, bow tie, and hat smiling at the camera.
The British direc­tor could be swap­ping mar­malade sand­wich­es for choco­late sauce for this next project.

Here’s some news to warm your cock­les on these cold days – Paul King is report­ed­ly in talks to direct a new Willy Won­ka movie. Yes, new, as opposed to adapt­ed or bor­rowed or remade. In 2016, pro­duc­er David Her­man revealed that the script will dif­fer from the pre­vi­ous films and even Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s books.

It’s chal­leng­ing because you don’t have Dahl, you don’t have a Dahl book, and yet you have a Dahl char­ac­ter,” he told Slash­Film, 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.”

Lit­tle is known about the project at this point, but it appears to be an ori­gin sto­ry about how Won­ka came to pro­cure such won­ders as a riv­er of choco­late and a posse of Oom­pa Loom­pas – think a can­di­fied Cit­i­zen Kane. The next ques­tion is, will any­one be able to live up to Gene Wilder’s icon­ic per­for­mance in the canon­i­cal 1971 musi­cal? Ryan Gosling has appar­ent­ly expressed inter­est in the role, but King may want to turn to his direc­to­ry of British actors to cast his lead.

Before scor­ing huge suc­cess with the Padding­ton films, King was best known for direct­ing the cult BBC com­e­dy The Mighty Boosh. Noël Field­ing would be a fair­ly left-field choice, but it’s not hard to imag­ine him don­ning the famous green slacks and top hat. Who would you like to see in the role? Let us know @LWLies

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