The Creator of CHILD'S PLAY Opens Up About the Reboot and Says He Turned Down the Opportunity to Be Involved
As you know, there are two Child’s Play projects in development at the same time. There is a feature film reboot being developed at MGM with director Lars Klevberg (Polaroid) and starring Aubrey Plaza and Brian Tyree Henry.
Then there’s a TV series in development that will continue the journey of the original film franchise. The creator of Child’s Play, Don Mancini, is developing that series with his producing partner David Kerschner and original actor Brad Dourif.
In a recent interview on the Post Mortem Podcast, Mancini talks about the reboot and explains that he was offered the chance to be a part of the movie reboot, but ultimately passed on it. He also says that his feelings were hurt when the studio decided to move forward with it. He explains:
“MGM retained the rights to the first movie, so they’re rebooting that. They asked David Kirschner and I if we wanted to be executive producers. We said no thank you because we have our ongoing thriving business with Chucky. Obviously my feelings were hurt. Ya know, I had just done two movies… forgive me if I sound defensive, [they] were both at 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Even though they didn’t get theatrical releases, they were well regarded. And I did create the character and nurture the franchise for three fucking decades.”
I get that. The studio obviously moved forward with the reboot without his blessing and he seems a little irked by that. But the studio does own the rights to the first movie, so there’s not much he can do except focus on the Child’s Play project that he’s passionate about and make the best possible series he can make. Mancini goes on to say:
“So when someone says, ‘Oh yeah, we would love to have your name on the film’… it was hard not to feel like I was being patronized. They just wanted our approval. Which I strenuously denied them. I hesitate to say too much about it because I don’t want to sound like I’m belly-aching too much. But the producers of that movie are the producers of IT. How would they feel if there was some legal loophole that allowed David Kirschner and I to swoop in and make our own IT movie with our own version of Pennywise and say, ‘Hey guys, we would love to put your names on it,’? I imagine they wouldn’t like it. That’s how I feel.”
He then goes on to talk about how the remake could directly affect him, saying:
“The people who are making that movie, they don’t know how that’s going to affect my livelihood. It’s not just a paycheck. It’s very personal. MGM’s screwing with that… potentially.”
He makes some good points here. In the end, Mancini will have the support of the fans of the franchise.
The contemporary reboot will follow a group of kids as they take on a technologically-advanced doll that enters their world. It’s also been reported that the version of Chucky in this film is "a defective 'Buddy doll' whose programming code was hacked so that he has no limitations to learning and also violence."
The new Child's Play reboot is set to hit theaters on June 20th, 2019. We don’t know when that Child's Play TV series will debut yet, but that’s the project fans are really excited about.
Source: Bloody Disgusting