If Oscar-winner Bong Joon-ho ever directed a Roald Dahl big-screen adaptation, chances are it’d be a critical and commercial success — given the Korean director’s track record. His 2013 film Snowpiercer was such a hit that it spawned an acclaimed TV series. And more recently, various publications and YouTubers began publishing viral online content about how Snowpiercer’s success is perhaps due to its story parallels with that of another hit film altogether (per Mental Floss).

For starters, both Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and Snowpiercer are about groups of people traveling through a fantastic structure. One by one, in each room, someone is lost, and the group is forced to continue without them until only one person remains. That person then finds out that the entire journey was a test elaborately concocted by a wealthy industrialist who needed a successor. It’s clear, therefore, why fans and film analysts can come to agree Snowpiercer sounds more and more like a sequel to Gene Wilder’s cult classic. Here’s a closer look.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

History of the Snowpiercer and Willy Wonka Franchises

     Paramount Pictures

First came the Roald Dahl adaptation in the ’70s, directed by Mel Stuart and starring Gene Wilder as Wonka. It’s an adaptation of the 1964 novel that had a slightly different name, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Perhaps they changed the title since the film focuses more on Wonka — which happens to be the reason why Dahl reportedly disowned the film after its release. We all know the premise: A poor child named Charlie Bucket, after finding a Golden Ticket in a chocolate bar, visits Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory along with four other children from around the world. After years of divided critics and viewers, the film gathered a cult following and eventually became hugely popular years later through re-runs and VHS/DVD purchases.

“‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ is probably the best film of its sort since ‘The Wizard of Oz,’” the late, great critic Roger Ebert once wrote in his four-star review. “It is everything that family movies usually claim to be, but aren’t: Delightful, funny, scary, exciting, and, most of all, a genuine work of imagination. ‘Willy Wonka’ is such a surely and wonderfully spun fantasy that it works on all kinds of minds, and it is fascinating because, like all classic fantasy, it is fascinated with itself.”

Decades later, Bong Joon-ho — the mastermind behind the recent Oscar-showered Parasite — made his English-language feature debut with Snowpiercer in 2013. This post-apocalyptic sci-fi action film based on the French graphic climate fiction novel stars Chris Evans plus an equally stellar cast, including Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, John Hurt, and Ed Harris. It takes place aboard a sprawling train that travels a globe-spanning track, carrying the last remnants of humanity after a failed attempt at climate engineering to stop global warming has created a new “snowball Earth.” TNT’s acclaimed series has run for three seasons thus far and follows a similar storyline, with terrific characters played by Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs.

Why Snowpiercer Could Be a Willy Wonka Sequel

     CJ Entertainment

Snowpiercer and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory couldn’t appear more different, but they share many similarities below the surface — at least enough to argue that the hard-R-rated sci-fi tale could be a follow-up to a children’s classic. This is passionately argued by folks like YouTuber Rhino Stew.

In Willy Wonka, Charlie is the one who makes it through in order to inherit a chocolate factory and the vast fortune that comes with it. In Snowpiercer, Curtis Everett (Evans) makes it to the end, where Wilford offers him his role as caretaker of the train’s engine. Both films are epic in nature and follow groups of people working their way through large and fantastical structures. Members of each group eventually leave the group (by accident in Wonka and by death in Snowpiercer).

The theory explained in Rhino Stew’s video adds that Ed Harris’ Wilford character in Snowpiercer could very well be a grown-up Charlie who took on a new moniker to honor Wonka before creating the train. And he would have had the means to do it in such an elaborate, self-sufficient factory. Snowpiercer and Willy Wonka are both visually fantastic films that offer strong lessons on society, community and class differences.

Future of Both Franchises on the Big and Small Screen

     Warner Bros. Pictures

TNT recently announced that the fourth season of Snowpiercer will not be aired, making it the final scripted original series to be featured on the network. The cancelation of the fourth season came as a surprise, as the show had already been renewed for another season. Still, we remain hopeful that we haven’t seen the last of this “snowball Earth.”

Meanwhile, there’s the upcoming Wonka musical this year, which will serve as a prequel to Dahl’s novel and look at how Willy Wonka became the chocolatier we all know and love. The film, directed by Paul King and starring Timothée Chalamet as the young Willy Wonka, will be released December 15 of this year.

But wait, there’s more. Back in 2020, we heard that Taika Waititi is partnering with Netflix for two Charlie and the Chocolate Factory projects. The first takes place within the world of Dahl’s novel, and the second is an original idea that will focus on the Oompa Loompas, which will build out their world. It still feels like Waititi is fresh off his Academy Award win for Jojo Rabbit, and it’s common knowledge the Thor: Love and Thunder director has a lot on plate these days — but we hope to see at least one of these Wonka projects in the next year or two.