By Barry Walsh

While Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is no stranger to family-friendly movie adaptations, the classic literary IP is now being turned into an unscripted competition series for Netflix. 

Fremantle’s Eureka Productions is producing The Golden Ticket, which is billed by the streamer as a “high-stakes social experiment” in which participants “must withstand games, tests and temptations designed to prove their instincts, resilience and ability to thrive in the chaos of a retro-futuristic dreamscape.”

Casting is underway, but the show’s launch date is still unknown. Eureka beat out several other production companies (most of them UK-based) to book this project, as Deadline reported in July 2024.

This new competition series is also poised to benefit from an increased awareness of the IP among young audiences, thanks to last year’s PG-rated feature film Wonka, which generated US$634.7 million in ticket sales against a US$125-million budget.

The Golden Ticket is Netflix’s latest play to mine the assets of The Roald Dahl Story Company, which it bought in 2021. At the time, the streamer said this acquisition would lead to “the creation of a unique universe across animated and live-action films and TV, publishing, games, immersive experiences, live theater, consumer products and more.” 

In 2020, filmmaker Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) signed on to write, direct and executive produce two Netflix shows, including a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory animated series and another toon based on the Oompa-Loompa characters. However, it’s been quiet on this front since. In fact, the only news has been Mikros Animation announcing in 2022 that it had been contracted to work on the first of these two series. 

A version of this story originally appeared in Kidscreen Daily‘s sister publication, Realscreen Daily.