Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

[Sal]

Keaton's a chameleon.  To be Beetlejuice, Batman, and like, recessively bad copies of himself in Multiplicity...I can definitely see the reason for choosing him.

[chainsmoking insomniac]

I would loooooooove Michael Keaton to do the Wonka in a Tim Burton remake. I think I'd just love a recollabo with them period.

Good call.

[modage]

i pick keaton, because he needs the fucking work.  walken is going to have work whether or not he's wonka, recently up for an oscar in cmiyc, and coming out in a few more movies this year.  whereas keaton, fucking fell off the face of the earth a few years ago, and needs to get back in the game.  there's nary been a word from him since jackie brown.  (i thought a quentin tarantino movie was supposed to re-vive your career? not kill it?)

[Satcho9]

Keaton for President....and the role of Wonka. THe problem with Walken, albeit he is a good actor and all, is that he will not be able to consume the role on the level Keaton could. As good as Walken could do, you will still look at him and think "thats chris walken"...whereas Keaton could just fucking absorb wonka and hopefully approach it from a different perspective.

So thats that.

[chainsmoking insomniac]

Eh, maybe.  I think both would be great, but as I said earlier, each one would the film a different feel.

[Ghostboy]

I'm really liking the idea of Keaton. I also had been rooting for Alan Cummings, but he probably came too close to the role already in the first Spy Kids.

I think the other remake Mac was referring to was Sleepy Hollow, which wasn't really a remake since it was never a feature, unless you're counting that eighties version starring Jeff Goldblum.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Abe Vigoda could play Wonka. Mwa-ha-ha...

[Gold Trumpet]

Why pick an actor, Keaton, in the hope he will mask himself and become Wonka? What use is there in that when you can just watch the original or see it start playing typical Burton dumb and look as something not really good, but creepier only. I'd feel like I was watching Beetlejuice again and seeing the typical of both Burton and Keaton. Walken seems like he wants to move into a happier role to savour, given Catch me if you Can and that FatBoy Slim video, and the idea of him being given two hours to run through such a role of glee and happiness is to exciting of an idea to miss. Walken smiling and talking is just a great thing to watch. When it comes down to that for me, I see no thinking about who should get this role and where it should go.

~rougerum

[Pwaybloe]

Yeah, what GT said.  

Let's see who we've got:

Michael "You wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts!" Keaton

or Christopher "I need more cowbell!" Walken

or Pikachu!  I choose you!

[MacGuffin]

Johnny Depp Frontrunner to Play Willy Wonka!
Source: Variety

The success of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and past collaborations with director Tim Burton make Johnny Depp the front-runner to play Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the second live-action adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic children's novel.

"Charlie" has long been considered one of Warner Bros.' most promising properties, one that the studio hopes will eventually lead to a Broadway musical.

[Sal]

[mindfuck]

Depp? Whaaaaa? What about the age thing?

[modage]

Depp? Whaaaaa? What about the age thing?

Depp is 40, which is 2 years older than Gene Wilder was when he played the role.

[budgie]

Johnny Depp is perfect, and will add the necessary other-worldliness with his supernatural beauty. There's a detachment about him that is perfect for Wonka, the same quality that Gene Wilder had, where you don't feel he's a threat to the kiddies but one of them in a parallel universe of unpolluted, sweet strangeness.

Whereas, although I long to see him in another Pennies From Heaven, Christopher Walken is on the too dad-like/too scary border, and too old.

And Michael Keaton is too fat and too tetchy. If he tries not to be nasty he'll be sentimental, which would be disastrous, for Burton and for the movie.

[mindfuck]

Depp? Whaaaaa? What about the age thing?

Depp is 40, which is 2 years older than Gene Wilder was when he played the role.

Wow. I assumed he was much younger.