Willy Wonka unwrapped

For generations of children, Gene Wilder has been Willy Wonka. The mad chocolate-factory owner created by Roald Dahl, brought to life on the big screen in 1971, has come to be a much-loved children's movie classic.

So there were some jitters when it was announced that the chisel-cheekboned Johnny Depp was to reprise the role under the direction of the Edward Scissorhands creator Tim Burton.

Wilder accused the producers of money-grabbing. "It's just some people sitting around thinking, 'How can we make some money?' Why else would you remake Willy Wonka?" he said in a bitter interview in America last month. "I don't see the point of going back and doing it all over again."

Yet Felicity (known as Liccy) Dahl, Roald Dahl's widow, and other members of his family are confident that the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would have secured Dahl's blessing and will come to surpass the sugar-coated 1971 version. "He would have loved it," Liccy said after a private screening.

Dahl was said to have been disappointed with the original film, not least because he had wanted the more eccentric Spike Milligan to play Wonka.

Previous suggestions of a remake had always fallen at the hurdles erected by the Dahl estate which had full approval on director, screenplay and lead casting. Warner Brothers have had the rights for about eight years, but only with the combination of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and, as Charlie, Freddie Highmore (the young actor acclaimed for his performance in Finding Neverland) did the family give the project the green light.

Burton was an intriguing prospect. With a back catalogue of dark and offbeat movies such as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice, he seemed closer in spirit to Roald Dahl than Mel Stuart was three decades ago. Johnny Depp described Tim Burton and Dahl as "a match made in heaven".

More significantly, Amanda Conquy, who handles the literary estate, insists that they never saw it as a remake of the first film. "We think it is a new film based on the book of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," she says.

"Warner Brothers are still selling the DVD of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which is very, very successful, particularly in the States where it has cult status for children. Warner are not doing this because they want in any way to stop their very precious and successful DVD of Willy Wonka. That will carry on alongside this.

"But it's time for this classic book to have a new film made of it. That film is now more than 30 years old. The book is 40 years old. It's time for it to be reinterpreted. And what we loved about Tim was that he was so inventive. His visual sense is so wonderful, and the [chocolate] factory demanded that."

Sources suggest that the much bigger budget (said to be between $130 million and $205 million) has enabled the new version to be more faithful to the original. In 1971, the film-makers replaced the chocolate factory's nut-sorting squirrels with a machine, but Burton has had 40 real squirrels trained to crack walnuts and put them on a conveyor belt.

"I don't want to crush people's childhood dreams," Burton said, "but the original film is sappy. I responded to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because it respected the fact that children can be adults. It was one of the first times you had children's literature that was a bit more sophisticated and dealt with darker issues and feelings. Sinister things are a part of childhood."

Conquy says the estate are thrilled that the new film version is much closer to the spirit of the book. "It's absolutely magical, and very, very funny. The comeuppances the children get delivered to them are delivered with such panache," she says.

She is convinced that those for whom Gene Wilder is the epitome of Willy Wonka will be won over, and that the new version surpasses the first. "The DVD of Willy Wonka still exists and it's great fun, but it seems of its time. This is a film that could only have been made now."

LOWDOWN

WHO: Johnny Depp

BORN: June 9 1963, Owensboro, Kentucky

KEY ROLES: A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984), Platoon (1986), 21 Jump Street (TV series 1987-1990), Cry-baby (1990), Arizona Dream (1993), Benny & Joon (1993), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Don Juan Demarco (1995), Dead Man (1995), Nick Of Time (1995), Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998), The Ninth Gate (1999), The Astronaut's Wife (1999), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Chocolat (2000), Blow (2001), From Hell (2001), Pirates Of The Caribbean (2003), Once Upon A Time In Mexico (2003), Secret Window (2004), Finding Neverland (2005)

LATEST: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Opens September 8

NEXT: Depp is filming the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean back-to-back

- Independent