Great things have happened when Kit Connor and Netflix have joined forces. The young star broke out on the streaming platform with his turn as Nick Nelson in the coming-of-age romance series Heartstopper opposite Joe Locke, and since then, he’s been building quite the resume. He most recently starred in Alex Garland‘s harrowing war epic Warfare and lent his voice to the little duckling Brightbill in DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot, with an upcoming reunion with Garland on the horizon in the director’s ambitious adaptation of FromSoftware’s bestselling RPG, Elden Ring. Next up is a reunion with Locke for Heartstopper Forever, a feature-length finale to Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring’s love story debuting in 2026.
However, Connor has more than one film lined up at Netflix. The streamer has announced that he’ll star in a new animated take on Roald Dahl‘s whimsical fantasy classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it’s not exactly the story most readers will remember. Titled Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory, it’ll instead take place in modern-day London and revolve around a new Charlie — Charlie Paley — a teenager who teams up with his fellow “rotten” kids to break into Willy Wonka’s factory and snag a priceless Wonka Bar to sell and save themselves from eviction. Like the previous Golden Ticket winners who have entered the world of pure imagination before, though, they soon find themselves in a sticky situation they never prepared for.
Along with the reveal and a 2027 premiere date, the first image was also released, offering a sneak peek at the titular Charlie and a modernized version of Wonka’s chocolate factory. It still evokes the same whimsical energy as it did in the beloved Gene Wilder film, but now looks like a modern industrial powerhouse firing on all cylinders. In this version, Wonka has paid for his crimes in the original story, serving years behind bars for turning a child into a blueberry. Upon his release, however, he seeks to bring more sweetness back to an increasingly bitter world. Charlie threatens to interfere with those plans, though he may end up finding that the boy isn’t as “rotten” as he seems. Expect new songs, new characters, and even a few other returning faces along the new adventure. In an official statement, Connor expressed his excitement about how the film stayed true to the original’s spirit while still being unique.
“I’m so excited to enter the wonderful world of Wonka. I was immediately caught by the early concept art, and the directors’ vision for the film – capturing the spirit and heart that made the original story so special, whilst imbuing it with something so fresh and unique. It’s such a fun representation of the London that I know. This new adventure is going to surprise audiences around the world, you’re in for a treat!”
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
Who Else Is Involved in ‘Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory’?
Charlie holding a sucker and looking at Willy Wonka’s factory in Charlie vs. the Chocolate FactoryImage via Netflix
Playing the inventive chocolatier this time around and following in the footsteps of Wilder, Johnny Depp, and Timothée Chalamet before him is Academy Award-winner Taika Waititi. Notably, back in 2020, Waititi had signed on at Netflix to work on not one, but two series based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the platform. For this film, he’s not just starring with Connor but also executive producing. Helming the film are DC League of Super-Pets co-director Jared Stern and Spirit Untamed co-director Elaine Bogan, with Sony Pictures Imageworks handling the animation.
Working on Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory was a very personal experience for Stern and Bogan. “Having been raised on the delightfully twisted world of Willy Wonka, it’s a privilege to bring his continued adventures to life as twisted adults,” they wrote. “And how sweet to do it like never before via the magic of animation, creating a Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory that’s more deliciously unhinged than your wildest imagination. If we do a rotten job, you can throw us down a rubbish chute!” Waititi spoke to their vision and his own long-held love for the eccentric chocolatier, adding
“Our directors, Jared and Elaine, have a bold vision befitting this new adventure whilst remaining sympathetic to the legacy, and I’m thrilled to play my part in bringing Willy Wonka to life in animated form. He is so special to me, and the opportunity to voice such an iconic, eccentric candy genius—if a little mischievous at times—is hugely exciting.”
Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory premieres on Netflix sometime in 2027. Check out the first image above.
