Netflix’s Willy Wonka Reality Show Replaces Kids with Adults and Gene Wilder with AI

Long before Squid Game, Willy Wonka was inviting contestants into a brightly colored nightmare and eliminating them one by one. Netflix has finally connected those dots and, unsurprisingly, turned it into a reality show. Even stranger but also somehow not unexpected, they’ve chosen to remove the children and resurrect Gene Wilder with AI. The first full trailer for Wonka’s The Golden Ticket has arrived, revealing Netflix’s nine-episode reality competition built around Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Twelve adult contestants and their chosen partners enter a recreation of Wonka’s factory, where they’ll compete in challenges and navigate various “temptations” for a “life-changing prize.” Gone are Charlie Bucket, Veruca Salt, Augustus Gloop, and in their place are grown adults sprinting through candy-colored sets, forming alliances, giving confessionals, and screaming with the intensity reality television has taught us is appropriate when someone unveils a large piece of chocolate. There is, however, a Willy Wonka. Or at least his voice. Rather than cast someone new, Netflix partnered with AI company ElevenLabs to recreate Gene Wilder’s voice, with permission from the ...