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With the advent of reality television came a complimentary genre of dangerous fictional reality competitions (Battle Royale, The Hunger Games, etc.). Following that, there’s been a burgeoning genre of reality competitions based on fictional competitions, like Squid Game: The Challenge. Add a new one to the books, or to the shows, or vice versa: today Netflix announced The Golden Ticket, a new competition series based on Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s novel Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.
Per Netflix, the new show is described as a “high-stakes social experiment,” which is more or less what Willy Wonka was doing to the kids in the book. Though not quite as high stakes as Squid Game (win or die), you’ll remember that the losers of Wonka’s secret ploy to find a chocolate factory successor dropped out in pretty alarming ways: washed down the chocolate river, blown up into a blueberry, shot down a garbage chute, shrunk to the size of a chocolate bar. Hopefully none of the real-life competitors meet such shocking fates, though Netflix did face some complaints for how it treated Squid Game: The Challenge participants.
Casting is in process now, not determined by who finds a special ticket with their candy bar but via a more standard application process. Netflix acquired the rights to Dahl’s work in 2021, and has since produced Matilda The Musical and the Oscar-winning short film The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar. (Next up is the animated feature The Twits.) “We are thrilled to bring the magic of The Chocolate Factory to life like never before,” Jeff Gaspin, Vice President of Unscripted at Netflix said in a statement. “This one-of-a-kind reality competition blends adventure, strategy, and social dynamics, creating an experience that is as captivating as it is unpredictable. For the first time, a lucky few won’t just have to imagine the experience—they’ll get to step inside the factory and live it.”
