angelophile | Jacko and the "Chocolate Factory"

The longish black hair. The pale skin. The ornate suit jacket. The--how should we say?--less than traditional adult male speaking voice.

That is fabled candymaker Willy Wonka as embodied by Johnny Depp in director Tim Burton's new take on the children's classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

One problem: "I think the casual viewer is going to see Michael Jackson."

So says Patrick Lee, news editor of online's Sci Fi Wire. And chances are the casual viewer wouldn't disagree.

Having one of its prized properties--much less, a PG-rated kids' fantasy--linked to a fallen pop star with longish black hair, pale skin, a whisper for a speaking voice, a penchant for military garb and a recent acquittal on child-molestation charges is likely not what the Hollywood studio had in mind when it turned Burton and company loose on author Roald Dahl's beloved, if preternaturally creepy, tale.

And, according to Depp, who openly copped to stealing riffs from rocker Keith Richards for his turn as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, it is absolutely not what the actor had in mind when he was conjuring the eccentric first brought to the big screen by Gene Wilder in 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Children-show hosts like Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers, these are the innocuous sorts who inspired Depp's Wonka, he has said.

"Everyone is entitled to think what they want," Depp said last week in a news conference in Nassau, Bahamas, "even while being violently wrong."

Box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian also has seen the film. Depp's Wonka, he says, "comes off more as Mr. Rogers than Michael Jackson."

If the trailer is creeping out audiences, says Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co., then that might not be such a bad thing for the film's box office. Dahl's tale of gluttony, greed and Oompa Loompas, after all, has never been confused for a Disney fairy tale. As such, the trippier the trailer, the potentially more intrigued the audience.

As long as Depp doesn't earn sustained unwanted comparisons to Jackson in Chocolate Factory, the Oompa Loompas likely will go along their merry, vaguely unsettling way.

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/eo/20050706/112070592000.html

(I just love that quote from Depp - gonna have to use that. ;)