WaterTower Music is enchanted to announce today's release of Wonka (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) with delectable original music performed by Timothée Chalamet in the title role, along with the movie's phenomenal ensemble cast, including Hugh Grant, Calah Lane and Keegan-Michael Key, and many others. The score features all-new music from acclaimed composer Joby Talbot and songwriter Neil Hannon. The soundtrack is available for streaming and on CD now with vinyl coming in 2024. Wonka opens in theaters and in IMAX internationally beginning 6 December 2023 and in North America on December 15, 2023, and is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.
"Right from the start I knew I wanted Wonka to be a companion piece to the 1971 movie for which Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse wrote such extraordinary, enduring songs as Oompa Loompa and, of course, Pure Imagination.
Our movie is set 25 years before theirs, in the late 1940s instead of the early 1970s, and I wanted new songs that could capture the spirit of their writing, as well as a flavour of our setting - the golden age of the Hollywood musical. And so I turned to Neil.
Neil Hannon is an extraordinary songwriter. I've loved his band The Divine Comedy ever since I knew they existed. His writing is funny and tender, witty and emotional, and I knew he could write contemporary songs that would sit alongside the Bricusse / Newley classics and channel the spirit of Roald Dahl's world.
Composer Joby Talbot has taken Neil's themes and woven them seamlessly into his score, ensuring the songs land brilliantly when they come, and that they resonate throughout the movie. It's such an impressive piece of work, building mood, underlining emotion, and creating a truly satisfying whole."
Composer Joby Talbot says: "I hadn't met Paul King before, but was a big fan of his previous work, and having heard that my old band mate and long-ago/long-time collaborator, Neil Hannon, had written the songs, I was naturally very intrigued to learn more about the project when I got the call to go into the cutting room for an initial chat. On seeing the movie, I was instantly struck by the originality and completeness of the world building and realized that my two main points of focus would be supporting and enhancing the world building and narrative, and embedding and setting up the songs. Paul's positive reactions to my initial ideas encouraged me to come onboard…The film is set in a slightly unspecified time and place, which gave me as the composer a wonderful degree of license with how to reflect the world in the music. Visually, it's a feast, so we didn't hold back…I'm hugely proud of the finished film and the work my team and I did on it. The hardest part - as with any movie with songs - was to create a musical environment in which the songs could live, while at the same time having the score do the required narrative heavy lifting. Paul King is a director who puts music front and center, and I'm grateful that he gave me so much room to really explore the musical possibilities of the beautiful and exciting world he created."
Songwriter Neil Hannon says: "I feel so lucky to have been a small part of this wonderfully warm and funny film. To be allowed to stir some of my own imaginative ingredients into Paul's fantastical recipe is one of the honours of my life. To get to work with my old friend and collaborator Joby Talbot again was a joy, and reminded me of what a genius he is. And for my humble songs to share the stage with two Newley-Bricusse classics I grew up adoring, is something I could only have dreamt about. But then every good thing in this world started with a dream!"