Did anybody really want one? Was there any sort of demand for one? Yeah, we’re thinking the same as you here… but regardless, a Willy Wonka prequel is soon to be in development.

Variety is reporting that David Heyman and Warner Bros. are teaming up once more to give audiences a new Willy Wonka movie. Heyman and The WB have previously worked together on the Harry Potter franchise and more recently Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (which is to be a five-movie series of its own), and now Warners has acquired the rights to the Willy Wonka intellectual property from the Roald Dahl Estate. Heyman will be producing the film alongside the Dahl Estate’s Michael Siegel, with Kevin McCormick serving as an executive producer and The Secret Life of Pets’ Simon Rich to pen the screenplay.

The early details on this new Wonka effort have it down as a story that will focus on Willy and some of his earlier adventures. There’s no information right now on just which other familiar characters, if any, will be a part of this film.

Warner Brothers has been in talks with the Roald Dahl Estate since the turn of the year over all of this, and now all has fallen into place for The WB.

Where Roald Dahl was concerned, he only wrote two stories that featured the Willy Wonka character – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Away from those, the character was immortalized by Gene Wilder, who sadly passed away earlier this year, in 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and was later played by Johnny Depp in Tim Burton’s 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

As ever, expect more this as it develops.