Is Timothée Chalamet’s Wonka a musical?

Wonka is ready to enter the cinemas of your pure imagination, but is it going to be a musical affair?

Timothée Chalamet is ready to step into the role of Wonka, and the prequel film has just dropped its first magical trailer.

Wonka is going to tell the origin story of the eccentric chocolatier and how he came to forge his empire, long before Charlie came around. Obviously, it will be set before the characters’ other films, that being Mel Stuart’s 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and Tim Burton’s 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

But is the new movie going to include songs like its predecessors? Well, read on to find out for certain.

Is Wonka 2023 a musical?

Yes, like the movies before it, Wonka will feature musical numbers. Although, director Paul King sees the movie more a film with songs, rather than a full musical.

In an interview with Total Film, King explained, “The Oompa Loompas sing a lot in the book, and Dahl always uses poetry. But I didn’t want it to just become a musical where people are singing dialogue to each other for no discernible reason. I felt like it was more like a movie with songs than a musical.”

As described by Deadline, “Wonka will mark the first time Chalamet gets to show off his singing and dancing skills with several musical numbers set to appear in the film. He’s been the top choice for some time but scheduling was a hurdle that had to be overcome as training for those numbers is included in the prep for this film.”

Granted, not much information has been released about how the musical numbers will work. Only one trailer has come out so far that actually shows the singing, as Hollywood now seems to have a new technique of hiding the fact that movies are musicals.

So how many songs will there be, and will they be diegetic like the Tim Burton film, or a mix of diegetic and non-diegetic like the Gene Wilder film?

It’s hard to say, as no soundtrack has been released by the label WaterTower Records, and the other trailers (as seen below) don’t reveal any of the music, barring the instrumental hints of “Pure Imagination”, and a little dance by one of the Oompa Loompas, as played by Hugh Grant.

Although it was previously reported that Neil Hannon – of the band The Divine Comedy – wrote a number of original songs for the prequel.

As revealed by King in a Warner Bros. Q&A, this musical is set to be a companion piece to the 1971 film, so we can perhaps expect there to be an overlap of music.

In another interview with Total Film, King also praised Chalamet’s singing voice: “[He]’s got a beautiful singing voice. The person it reminded me of was Bing Crosby. There’s quite a range because it does go from a couple of bigger, showstopper-y sort of things, to moments of real, pure emotion, and he can do it all… I’m going to sound like a crazed fan.”

Chalamet was picked for the musical after a viral dancing video

King has revealed to that viral videos of Timothée Chalamet’s high school “Lil Timmy Tim” performance actually helped him get cast in the role. In the videos, Chalamet raps a song called ‘Jump’ at LaGuardia High School back in 2012.

“Because he’s Timothée Chalamet and his life is so absurd, his high school musical performances are on YouTube and have hundreds of thousands of views,” King explained. “So I knew from stanning for Timmy Chalamet that he could sing and dance really well. And I knew that was in his arsenal, but I didn’t know how good he was. When I spoke to him he was quite keen. He’d done tap dancing in high school and he was like, ‘I’d quite like to show people I can do that.'”

Despite his “jumping” skills, during an interview for Time in 2021, Chalamet revealed that recording songs at Abbey Road put a lot of pressure on the young star’s shoulders: “I felt out of my league. Like I was desecrating history!”

Regardless, it seems like the movie and its music will be an uplifting experience for audience members, as he described Wonka as such: “It’s not mining the darker emotions in life. It’s a celebration of being off-center and of being OK with the weirder parts of you that don’t quite fit in.”

Wonka will release in cinemas on December 15, 2023.