12 Iconic Movie Characters Who Were Disastrously Recast
1. Willie Wonka - Johnny Depp
The Film: Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (2005)
In The Original: Gene Wilder
You can almost admire what Tim Burton and Johnny Depp tried to do with their portrayal of Willie Wonka as a warped product of an abusive, removed relationship with his over-bearing father, but ultimately, it just couldn't compete with what Gene Wilder did in the original.
Wilder's Wonka is fundamentally likeable, even when he's blasting Charlie for stealing from him, or showing worrying murderous tendencies. His is an intelligent portrait that makes no direct allowances for the fact that he's in a children's movie, and there's no unnecessary artifice to his performance.
Depp instead went with a sort of deranged kids TV host with a silly voice and a sillier hair-style. He's very Burton-esque, but that wasn't necessarily the right idea for the material. And the whole performance is rather horribly over-shadowed by the nagging suggestion that Wilder's performance should have remained unchallenged entirely.
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