Kerry Parnell: Wonka sure is a sweet Christmas in July gift for all

A new Willy Wonka movie is on its way for Christmas. Kerry Parnell writes it looks scrumdiddlyumptious and she can’t wait to get her golden ticket.

I reckon Wonka looks like a stonker and Timothee Chalamet anything but a muppet.

This week, we got the first look at Chalamet’s Wonka, as the trailer for the much-anticipated kids’ movie was released. And social media lost their minds.

Wonka, a prequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, is an origin story of how Willy Wonka launched his confectionary empire. Written and directed by Paul King and Simon Farnaby of Paddington-fame, it has much the same feel of the gloriously-uplifting movies about everyone’s favourite bear. It also has Hugh Grant, this time as an acerbic Oompa Loompa, which is making people lose their doompety minds.

Director King said it was a light-bulb moment casting Grant, who also appeared in Paddington 2 as the villain Phoenix Buchanan.

Hugh Grant as Phoenix Buchanan in Paddington 2. Now he is an acerbic Oompa Loompa.

“Going back to the book, and reading all those poems, and hearing (the Oompa Loompas’) voice as a very sort of cynical, sarcastic, cruel, funny, but wicked voice, I went, ‘Oh … That’s sort of a bit like Hugh!’” King told Empire magazine. “It was a real light-bulb moment – you go, ‘Hugh Grant’s an Oompa Loompa! Yes please! Merry Christmas, with a bow on it’.”

Merry Christmas indeed – I reckon this is the best Christmas present ever and it’s only July.

Timothee Chalamet as Willy Wonka. Critics say he’s a Wonka plonker.

I’m counting down the days until Wonka is released in December, as it promises to enter into that rare cannon of movies which make you feel really good about the world. I challenge anyone to feel blue after watching Paddington 2.

However, King’s Wonka vision is causing a social media stink (what’s new?), as commentators take umbrage at everything from an orange Grant (“I want to kill Hugh Grant’s Wonka Oompa Loompa with a hammer,” declared GQ, which seems a tad OTT. Chill out, guys, maybe you need a tot of fizzy lifting drink to pep you up), to Chalamet’s delivery of an iconic Wonka line. In the trailer he says, “You see, I’m something of a magician, inventor, and chocolate maker. So quiet up and listen down, nope scratch that, reverse it.”

His critics’ problem? He’s a Wonka plonker, they say, lacking “Silly Guy Energy,” apparently.

What he does have, they note with glee, is Gonzo’s outfit from The Muppet Christmas Carol, of burgundy coat, brown top hat and scarf, leading them to state he’s cosplaying the purple-nosed puppet.

Isn’t it all just totally delicious? People are truly going Wonka-bonkers – one woman angrily demanded the “sexification of Willy Wonka be stopped”, as though there’s an underground hot choccy movement.

There’s really no need to be so Slugworth about this story. It’s a new tale by much-loved filmmakers, spun out of a much-loved children’s movie, from a much-loved children’s book, written by a much-loved children’s author 60 years ago in his little shed behind his house in southern England. Dahl got the idea from his own childhood when, as a schoolboy, he was sent chocolate to test from the Cadbury factory.

It’s a world of pure imagination and I think it looks scrumdiddlyumptious.

I can’t wait to get my golden ticket.