'Wonka' Ending Explained: Will We Get a 'Wonka 2'?

As mentioned earlier, this version of Wonka is a prequel, meaning it centers around the story of a young Willy Wonka and how he made it big in the chocolatier industry despite some evil obstacles that try and get in his way. Aside from the evil forces trying to disrupt Wonka's magic plan, the energy of the film is a whimsical magical one (accompanied by a brilliant production design)—so much so that you actually sometimes forget that there's actually dark forces trying to stop his rise. That leads to the ending of the film and how we think it sets things up for their to be a sequel.

We're now at the point where one of the Oompa-Loompa catches up with Wonka while he's on the boat to encourage him to not give up and fight back against the cartel. Wonka eventually makes a connection with Noodle, realizing that Scrubbit and Bleacher bought her out as a method to prevent her from being able to access the riches she was due. That means it's revenge time. Wonka and the gang begin planning a heist that's going to destroy and expose all of the little dirty deeds the cartel has been up to. Wonka and Noodle are able to break into the secret vault of the the cartel, and it doesn't take them long to start finding key pieces of evidence to use against them.

All is going well until the cartel catches them in action and tries to drown them in massive amount of never ending chocolate. Thankfully they get rescued by the Oompa-Loompa, but there's still some work that needs to be done. Too bad for Prodnose, Fickelgruber, Slugworth—Wonka and Noodle appear just as the three are delivering the bad news about their deaths. Caught red handed. The corrupt police chief gets arrested, and Prodnose, Fickelgruber, Slugworth start floating away as they have eaten some of Wonka's floating chocolates.

There's additional footage shown in the end credits that revealed a happily ever after for Wonka and all of his buddies, which is made even more tear-jerking as the final song of the movie was Chalamet's version of “Pure Imagination." For the moment we can pretend that everything is all perfect in the land of Wonka (even though we know otherwise), and that's all that matters.

At the moment, all signs point to a potential sequel being contingent upon how Wonka performs at the box office. Things seem to be off a decent start for its opening weekend here in the US as according to Variety, Wonka is expected to generate $35 million this weekend. As for what the film has earned thus far overseas, Variety also reports that Wonka earned $43.2 million in 37 markets including the U.K., Spain, Mexico, China and Japan. Should we see a sequel in the future there's lots of avenues director Paul King can take the film as, remember, the prequel is set twenty years before the events of Gene Wilder's 1971 movie. That means you've got a whole two decades you can play around with as far as storylines go, and knowing Paul King, he'll find a phenomenal direction to take the plot as he always does.