Deciding which parents get to visit the factory
Filed under: Scripts
In his latest blog entry, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory screenwriter John August talks a little bit about the trouble involved in adapting a novel to the big screen . In Roald Dahl’s book, each of the four rotten kids brings both of their parents on the tour of the chocolate factory. And for reasons that are never entirely clear, Charlie only decides to bring Grandpa Joe. According to the rules on the Golden Ticket, he’s allowed to bring two parents, but he doesn’t. This presents a lot of problems because "twice the parents means everyone gets half as much to say and do." The solution was to change the Golden Ticket rule to one legal guardian. But with a popular book like this one this creates even more problems because characters are going to get cut, and die hard fans might not accept the choices. August gives his American Idol ruling on who made the final cut and why."Even with just these four characters, it took work to find enough for everyone to do and say. In the Chocolate Room, for instance, we have to keep track of Willy Wonka, Charlie, Grandpa Joe, Augustus, Mrs. Gloop, Violet, Ms. Beauregarde, Veruca, Mr. Salt, Mike and Mr. Teavee. That’s eleven characters, not counting the Oompa-Loompas. If we’d added four more parents to the scene, we’d probably still be shooting it."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-27-2005 @ 5:30PM
mick du russel said...
It seems like every classic movie is eventually going to be remade. Is "The Wizard of Oz" next? Why not "Chitty Chittl Bang Bang"? Are screen writers running out of ideas? Classic films should be left alone. I will always remember Gene Wilder and Jack Albertson in the original "Willie Wonka". Johhny Depp is a great actor but Wilder's shoes may be too big to fill. We will see.
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7-18-2005 @ 3:40AM
kiingarthur said...
For the last time...
this is NOT A REMAKE of the first movie.
What is it about that fact that people don't seem to get?
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