At a time when many other slasher icons of the ’80s have fizzled out, Chucky from Child’s Play is in the middle of a renaissance, with new films and a TV series all on the way in the near future. Brad Dourif has voiced the character in all seven films, which have all been written by Don Mancini. According to Bloody Disgusting, neither Mancini nor Dourif will be involved in the recently-announced reboot of the film.
According to the site, MGM has been attempting to convince Mancini and franchise producer David Kirschner to provide the duo with an executive producer credit on a reboot for years, with the pair regularly declining. Other popular slashers like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street have already gotten the reboot treatment, making a cash-in on the Child’s Play brand seem like a sure thing. However, Mancini and Kirschner continue to expand the one unified universe of the series, with Mancini having directed more recent installments.
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“We’re still working on the series and also plan to continue the film franchise with Universal,” Mancini shared with the site. “We intend to stay true to the universe we’ve created.”
Bloody Disgusting also confirms that Dourif will stay aligned with Mancini and Kirschner to lend his voice to the universe they’ve created rather than join the reboot film.
The most recent film, Cult of Chucky, opened up all-new opportunities for the franchise, with Mancini previously having revealed he has no shortage of ideas to further explore both in the TV series and with films.
“It points in a specific direction for some of these characters, and where they end up,” Mancini told ComicBook.com about how Cult of Chucky changed the franchise. “That is not something I would flee from. I do have ideas of where the next step for these characters will go. I have all kinds of different ideas. This is an ongoing franchise that we want to oversee as we go into the future.”
Mancini added, “There are all kinds of possibilities, and that’s one of the things I want to do at the end of this movie, was in a completely, new, surprising way, so that the viewer could say ‘Wow, where is this going to go now? I didn’t see it going in this direction.’”
Stay tuned for details about the future of the Child’s Play franchise.
Would you be interested in a Child’s Play without Dourif, Mancini, or Kirschner involved? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!
[H/T Bloody Disgusting]