<P> When interviewed for the 30th anniversary special edition, Gene Wilder stated that he enjoyed working with most of the child actors, but said that he and the crew had some problems with Paris Themmen, claiming that he was "a handful". </P> <P> Before its release, the film received advance publicity though TV commercials offering a "Willy Wonka candy factory kit" for sending $1.00 and two seals from boxes of Quaker cereals such as King Vitaman, Life and any of the Cap'n Crunch brands . </P> <P> Willy Wonka was released on June 30, 1971 . The film was not a big success, being the 53rd highest - grossing film of the year in the U.S., earning just over $2.1 million on its opening weekend . It received positive reviews from critics such as Roger Ebert, who compared it to The Wizard of Oz . Ebert said, "All of this is preface to a simple statement: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is probably the best film of its sort since The Wizard of Oz . It is everything that family movies usually claim to be, but aren't: Delightful, funny, scary, exciting, and, most of all, a genuine work of imagination . "Willy Wonka" is such a surely and wonderfully spun fantasy that it works on all kinds of minds, and it is fascinating because, like all classic fantasy, it is fascinated with itself ." </P> <P> By the mid-1980s, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory had experienced a spike in popularity thanks in large part to repeated television broadcasts and home video sales . Following a 25th anniversary theatrical re-release in 1996, it was released on DVD the next year, allowing it to reach a new generation of viewers . The film was released as a remastered special edition on DVD and VHS in 2001 to commemorate the film's 30th anniversary . In 2003, Entertainment Weekly ranked it 25th in the "Top 50 Cult Movies" of all time . </P>

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