Netflix ‘Wonka’ show recreates Gene Wilder’s voice with AI. It’s skin-crawling.

This isn't what Charlie Bucket signed up to see. This isn't what fans of Gene Wilder signed up to see.

Netflix has, for some reason and for some unknown audience, taken classic family film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and turned it into a reality show. Yes, reality TV. A competition, no less.

"Wonka's Golden Ticket" (now streaming) is an unholy combination of "Big Brother," "The Amazing Race," "Squid Game" and a micro-dosed fever dream. And as if that weren't bad enough, the streamer has made this boondoggle worse by using an AI-recreation of the voice of one of the greatest actors of a generation, back from the dead and reduced to a soulless, faceless reality TV host, like a disembodied Julie Chen minus what little charm she has.

That's right, the voice of Gene Wilder, zombified and stripped of the man who made generations laugh and gasp, is narrating a reality show.

"Wonka's Golden Ticket" features pairs of loved ones who enter a real-life Wonka chocolate factory to vie for "a lifetime supply of money" ($100,000 a year for 30 years, a real bold assumption on Netflix's part that the streamer will be around in three decades).

Alongside…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/entertainment/