#theobald

Charlie is on Netflix, but I had no real intention of watching it.  I own six copies of the film on DVD and Blu-ray and if I were to watch it I’d likely watch it on Blu-ray.  But earlier today, I was watching Nickflix’s reaction to the movie.  I always like watching people’s first time reactions to movies I like.  But in watching him watch the movie, I noticed something strange... Theobald Film Productions received a credit in the opening credits.

This is... incredibly odd.  I checked the DVD version of the film, Theobald does not have a credit in the opening credits.  I checked the Blu-ray version of the film, which has those deleted scenes edited into the movie.  Same thing, Theobald is absent from the opening credits.  I checked the Chinese Blu-ray I own, same thing.  When the movie aired on Freeform last October, same thing.  And lastly, I checked the version of the movie that is currently on HBO Max.  Same thing.  The version of the film on Netflix is the only version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that I can find where Theobald is given an opening credit.

So, this is weird.  It adds more to the mystery of what exactly Theobald is and why, 17 years after Charlie’s release (and less than a year after Theobald’s apparent dissolution), it has it’s name inserted into the opening credits.

But then I had a thought, and this is possibly just wishful thinking.  For Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory’s 4K release back in June, it had the Paramount logo inserted into the beginning.  And as I was skipping through the version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Netflix, I don’t know if I was just going crazy and seeing it, but it looked better than I remembered.  What if Warner Bros. upgraded Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for a 4K release later this year, and the version they’ve given Netflix is some 1080p version of that 4K scan?  And since they were updating the film and had access to the editing of the film, they put Theobald in the opening credits (for some reason).  There is precedent for 4K or upgraded versions of movies going to streaming platforms before physical media.

Now this might just be me wishful thinking because I would love to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory come to 4K.  And the version on Netflix didn’t look TOO much better than the other versions available.  But I’m confused by all of this, and it is one major coincidence that five days after my Theobald post, this version comes to life (although I probably would never have looked out for it before).