Taika Waititi Adapting 'Charlie and The Chocolate Factory' For Netflix

Newzealand filmmaker Taika Waititi is a very busy man. Even before he won an Oscar for his latest film Jojo Rabbit, he was already signed up for Thor: Love and Thunder for Marvel,  sports comedy Next Goal Wins and the live-action Akira as well as being in talks with LucasFilm to create a Star Wars film. Now he's also added an animated series for Netflix to his schedule.

Waititi has signed on to write, direct and executive produce two new 'event series' based on Roald Dahl's beloved Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. One will be based on the world and characters of the novel, and the second is a wholly original story based on the Oompa-Loompas.

This is the first project to come out of Netflix's acquiring of the rights to create limited event series based on Dahl's works. The company is reportedly looking for other high-profile creatives to adapt other Dahl works such as The BFG, Matilda and The Twits. The series will take the characters from the story and expand upon their worlds far beyond what was in the original books.

The original story has been adapted before- with the iconic 60's Gene Wilder version and less successfully by Tim Burton in 2005. However, Waititi's unique sensibilities should mean that will be a take on the idea we've never seen before.

Netflix's Melissa Cobb, VP of animation says:

I grew up reading Dahl stories and lived large parts of my young life in those magical worlds, so finding just the right creative partner to bring Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Oompa-Loompas to life in animation was a daunting task...until Taika walked into the room. Then, it was really obvious. If Dahl had created a character of a filmmaker to adapt his work, I'm pretty sure he would have created Taika,

This isn't the first animated project Waitiiti has been attached to. He was originally due to direct stop-motion feature Bubbles for Netflix and Starburns and was working on an animated Flash Gordon project for Fox that was dropped post Disney takeover. We've been keen to see him bring his quirky style to animation for some time, so we hope that this time it actually comes to fruition.

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