The movie that offended Gene Wilder: “I think it’s an insult”

Posted On February 16, 2025February 16, 2025

Some people are just born funny. The late, great Gene Wilder was one of those people. Known for his collaborations with Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor, the comedic genius has provided some of the biggest laughs in the history of cinema. Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein alone would be enough to secure anyone’s legacy, but the rest of Wilder’s amazing career ensured that he is remembered fondly today as one of the greats.

Any discussion of Wilder would be incomplete without mentioning arguably his most famous role, Willy Wonka in the 1971 classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. As the borderline psychopathic venture capitalist, Wilder guides the golden ticket winners and the audience alike through his multi-coloured wonderland, really taking the edge off a film where four kids suffer horrible accidents. On a serious note, he expresses a fabulous range as Wonka, from childlike glee to adult rage to utter terror. His rendition of ‘Pure Imagination’ is gorgeous.

Wilder isn’t the only actor to bring Roald Dahl’s creation to the big screen. In 2023, Timothée Chalamet played a younger version of the character in Paul King’s Wonka. Then there’s Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from 2005, which cast who else but Johnny Depp as the man with a thousand recipes. Depp’s performance, which lands somewhere between Michael Jackson and Jeffrey Dahmer, still divides opinion to this day. Wilder knew exactly how he felt about it, though – he wasn’t a fan.

In an interview with Turner Classic Movies, Wilder expressed his displeasure at Depp in the strongest possible terms. “I think it’s an insult,” he said (via The Wrap). “Johnny Depp, I think, is a good actor, but I don’t care for that director. He’s a talented man, but I don’t care for him doing stuff like he did.”

It’s possible that Wilder was motivated by Burton’s own disparaging comments towards the original movie adaptation. He called it ‘sappy’. Depp, on the other hand, had nothing but praise for his predecessor. “Regardless of what one thinks of that film, Gene Wilder’s persona, his character, stands out,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “It was brilliant but subtle. So that scares the crap out of you. Those are big shoes. So the only way to go is back to the book and try to figure out what Roald Dahl had in his head, and then make a series of left turns. And those left turns were to go as far away from Gene Wilder’s interpretation as possible.”

Depp hit the nail on the head with that assessment. Wilder’s performance is so iconic, influenced so heavily by the actor’s own ideas, that it was always going to be a tough act to follow. If the Burton version had been too similar, then audiences would have decried it as a rip-off. When the finished version was radically different, they were unhappy that it was unfaithful. They were kind of in a lose-lose situation.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has found an audience these days, particularly among children who first saw it. While some still prefer the ‘71 version, which is probably objectively better, it’s important that multiple takes on a classic story can exist side-by-side. Although it would have been fun to have seen Depp do that forward roll down those stairs.

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