He started his career directing left-field comedies for Channel 4. Now Paul King is the master of blockbuster family movies that earn millions at the box office
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PAUL KING is recalling the first time it was suggested that he make a film about the young Willy Wonka, a character previously played on film by Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp. He had just finished work on the sequel to Paddington, which he co-wrote and directed, and the success of those films had opened new doors. “I was on a list of people who might not definitely mess up a big family movie,” is how King puts it.
But initially he wasn’t convinced by the merits of telling Wonka’s origin story. “It’s very nerve-inducing working with a character or a story that people know and is beloved,” King says, “so I was very apprehensive about whether it should be done or not.”
While musing on whether to say yes, King returned to Roald Dahl’s original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which he hadn’t read since childhood. “I remembered how funny and eccentric the characters were,” he recalls, “but I’d forgotten how incredibly moving it is and by the end I was in floods of tears. I realised that it was the combination of heart and humour that I’ve been trying to do all my professional life.”
King signed up, and it turned out to be a smart decision. Wonka, which stars Timothée Chalamet in the eponymous role and features a host of top-drawer acting talent, including Olivia Colman and Hugh Grant (as an Oompa Loompa!), has made well over $500 million at the box off ice worldwide – more than his two Paddington films combined.
The film has also been nominated for a Bafta for outstanding British f ilm, where it’s up against, among others, Saltburn and Poor Things. Wonka is the only film on the list that could be considered family viewing. “The idea is that it does appeal to everyone,” says King. “You can watch it with your grandma and your grandchildren and you should all enjoy it.”
Family films often end up being loved by audiences but are not always deemed, in King’s words, to be “awardsy”. He says that “the nicest thing for me has been seeing it with my daughter, who’s five, and seeing it with real families in the real world.” Should Wonka end up winning the Bafta, I suspect King may leave that bit out of his winning speech.
King’s own origin story begins in Chicago where, according to Wikipedia, he was born. What was his American childhood like? “I was born in Hampshire,” King replies, thus proving you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet. Growing up in the 1980s, King, who is 45, was obsessed with Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the G
