Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Broadway?

Is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory from London still eyeing a Broadway run? I'd love to see it come over, but it seems like talk has died down. I have not heard about it for a while. Hope it is still in the works.

I wonder if the fact that we in the USA are much more enamored with the classic Gene Wilder film than those in the UK might be causing them worry, and that Broadway audiences might be expecting to see that version, and might walk away disappointed when they don't.
Of course, it didn't seem to hurt Mary Poppins. (Or did it?)

But Mary Poppins on stage was so much better than the mess that is Chocolate Factory.

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I say no. To all of this.

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Yes the show was a massive disappointment when I saw it. Very bland, no magic, mystery or whimsy. I didn't love Matilda but I'd put that and the lion king far above Charlie as a family must see show

Wonka finally makes an entrance at the end of Act one, but even when they enter the factory, you have been so bored by what took place in act one, that nothing can save the show, awful book, songs that are forgettable, it really was a major letdown

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Updated On: 8/9/14 at 09:24 AM

With the amount of money that's been thrown at it you'd think that the physical production would be better. The factory sets are quite ugly, the chocolate room is like a reject from the wizard of Oz and the chocolate waterfall could have been so much more effective than a stationary piece of plastic. And the arm the glass elevator is on is clearly visible from some seats

I saw the show a few weeks after it opened...yeah it's kind of a mess. The pacing is really off. Act 1 felt liked it dragged on forever, with each kid getting a number when they receive a golden ticket. Although I really did love the use of the television. The chocolate factory set I found alright, I did enjoy veruka's russian nut ballet. But for me the show didn't really come alive till the last 15minutes. I loved how they did charlie's drawings and inventions with the book, and of course pure imagination is a great song. Although it's sad that the only song I can remember is from the infamous 1970's film.

This show will need some major overhauling if it ever plans to come to broadway. I would actually love to see it as a one act. I did think Douglas Hodge was quite good and menacing as wonka, would love to see him come back in a revamped version

I saw the videts number and by that and that number it was the worst thing I have ever seen

MTI only licenses musicals. Your friend must have gotten that elsewhere.

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Plain and simple, anyone banking on a Willy Wonka-related musical succeeding without the film score, which has become timeless to generations of children, is barking up the wrong tree. Same thing with the Andrew Lloyd Webber attempt at adding more songs to The Wizard of Oz, which did semi-decent business in the UK where it's not a national institution, but died a quick death on a cheapo Troika tour in the US. People haven't learned yet that you really shouldn't tinker with a childhood classic unless it stands a chance of improving it (which I feel the additions to Mary Poppins did, giving it a little more edge and making it less cutesy and watered down compared to the P.L. Travers stories).

Incidentally, the point above reminds me of Pete's Dragon, which I think would be great for Disney to mine for its next family-friendly Broadway smash. Script is solid enough to work better on a Broadway stage than it did on film, there's a decent enough handful of songs that could work without shoehorning more into the score (think Peter and the Starcatcher; there's even material that didn't make it to the final cut of the film for at least one number preserved on the soundtrack, and you could literally write that back into the final version of the number and lose nothing), if they're worried they can slap the Hyperion name on it until it has proven it's not an embarrassment (like Aida), and if you want a gimmick, you go with what they originally intended for film and don't reveal the dragon for real until the closing sequence. Boom.

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Updated On: 8/10/14 at 10:55 AM

I agree. Making a stage version of WILLY WONKA without the film score is destined for failure. They also need to keep the changes that David Seltzer wrote into his (uncredited) screenplay. If you read the book, it is very much a child's tale, with one dimensional characters, and motivations that come out of nowhere and make little sense. The biggest problem with the original tale is that Charlie wins the factory at the end because he is simply the last one standing. It was Seltzer who added that final scene with Wonka going off on Charlie and Grampa Joe and Charlie making that huge sacrifice. Those changes that Sletzer made are not in the MTI musical version, though many productions addd them anyways.

Wait.... Mary Poppins was a carbon copy? I thought there were some major changes to the show that are not in the movie.

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