Child’s Play Reboot Director Still Hopes to Make Sequel

Last year saw a reboot of Child’s Play land in theaters, which offered a reinvention of the source material, and while it didn’t become a major blockbuster, director Lars Klevberg is still hoping he gets to continue with the mythology the film introduced. The film took in $45 million worldwide on a budget of $10 million, a return that audiences would think a studio would be interested in recreating, but with creator of the original franchise Don Mancini having developed a TV series continuation of the previous seven films, it’s possible that the studio doesn’t want to overload the market with the character.

“It would be amazing to pull the crew and the actors back for another one, but MGM needs to get their stuff together and do it,” Klevberg shared on Instagram, per Bloody Disgusting. “It’s all there.”

In the reboot, realizing that her son Andy (Gabriel Bateman) is lonely, Karen (Aubrey Plaza) buys him a seemingly innocent, AI-enhanced Buddi doll that he names Chucky. But Chucky’s safety restrictions have been disabled, and soon, a gruesome series of events unfolds. Unable to convince his mom that the doll is responsible for the carnage, Andy becomes the target of the bloodthirsty Chucky!

The original film had a much more supernatural angle, as it focused on murderer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) using his final moments after a fatal shooting to inject his soul into the body of a Good Guy doll, allowing him to come back to life to continue his reign of terror. Dourif voiced the villainous Chucky in all seven original films and will be returning for the upcoming Chucky TV series on SYFY.

The reboot tapped Mark Hamill to voice Chucky, with the actor having noted that what drew him to the project were the changes from the source material.

“They sent me the script, and I thought the crucial element that was different from the original – which I liked, and I’m a huge fan of Brad [Dourif]’s interpretation – is in this one, Chucky has a different origin,” Hamill shared during a press event last year. “So, it’s not the soul of a serial killer, [it’s] that someone deliberately goes in and alters his operating system and takes off the safety measures. So, he was really like an innocent child, really just learning from what goes on around him. That was crucial… Also, the age of the boy; he was like five or six [in the original]. Gabriel [Bateman] plays a character who’s a young teenager, and that was a fundamental difference from the original.”

Stay tuned for details on the possible future of the Child’s Play reboot series. Chucky lands on SYFY next year.

Would you like to see the reboot get a sequel? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!