Wonka Trailer Shows Timothée Chalamet’s Sweet Showman and Hugh Grant’s Fun-Size Oopma-Loompa

Wonka has revealed its first official trailer, putting the spotlight on Timothée Chalamet’s whimsical chocolate maker and giving us a look at Hugh Grant’s fun-size Oopma-Loompa.

The trailer focuses mostly on Wonka’s quest to shake up the chocolate industry while facing a chocolate cartel and a slew of other obstacles. It’s not until the very end of the trailer that we get a look at Grant’s miniature Oompa-Loompa. The actor’s orange-hued face appears on a CGI version of the diminutive character, sporting a checkered purple suit and a pair of winklepicker-style shoes with fluffy pom-poms for extra pizzazz.

Chalamet sports a variety of speculator costumes in the trailer alongside Calah Lane, playing a character named Noodle. People Magazine also debuted some new images of Wonka in conjuction with the trailer, with one image seeing Chalamet in a similar outfit to the one he was wearing in his first look photo, as he holds onto his co-star to stop her from floating away into the night sky.

Calah Lane and Timothée Chalamet in ‘WONKA’

(via @people) pic.twitter.com/BoHSyvQhwu

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) July 11, 2023

“The film tells the story of a young Willy Wonka, who comes to an uptight European center of chocolate with all these very fancy chocolate shops that sell candy at sharply inflated prices,” director Paul King told the outlet. “[Chalamet] brings this riot of color and energy and the future, and a lot more joyous sense of it.

“We try to evoke that through these kind of dance sequences there,” he added. “And there’s a couple of really big numbers in there, and there’s an amazing sort of zero-gravity set piece [and] some really lovely numbers.”

Entertainment Weekly also shared images of Chalamet in action, teasing some of the movie’s musical sequences. In one photo, he appears in a state of wonderment, gazing up at a candy jar, and in another snap, he looks to be commanding the stage with a cane amongst a sea of Wonka umbrellas held by surrounding performers.

New look at Timothée Chalamet in ‘WONKA.’ pic.twitter.com/AxNh5CbArA

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 11, 2023

While he looks to be having a lot of fun, King told the publication that he wanted Chalamet to tap into the emotional side of the character. “He’s such a brilliant actor at expressing really deep emotions within the context of a family movie,” he explained. “He’s just extraordinary as well at singing and dancing. He’s got the voice of an angel and the toes of… I don’t know what toes.”

King also wanted his adaptation of the beloved Roald Dahl tale to compliment the Gene Wilder film. “What I wanted this movie to be was like a companion piece to that movie,” he said. “If you imagine those people in that world 25 years earlier, that was my starting process. Eventually, he would grow into that person and that factory.”

Wonka is a period musical that takes place before the events of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with original songs written by Neil Hannon of the band The Divine Comedy. The screenplay is by King and Paddington 2’s Simon Farnaby, while the film’s producers are David Heyman, Luke Kelly, and Alexandra Derbyshire.

The movie opens in theaters on December 15, 2023.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.