Once one reboot does well, the floodgates open, and when IT was a commercial and critical success, every production company went looking for a nostalgic horror franchise to bring back. MGM is looking to get in on this trend with a new reboot of Child’s Play.
Child’s Play, which might be more familiar to some readers as the Chuckie franchise, is about a serial killer who, while dying, puts his soul into a doll and wrecks havoc and death as he tries to get back into a normal body.
According to Collider, this new movie will involve a group of kids who have to deal with a more technologically advanced doll. The doll may or may not be named Chuckie, and we’re not sure if the doll will be possessed by a killer or if he will be evil by some other means. It’s clear they’re looking to bank a little bit off of the Stranger Things/IT formula with the kids, but they’re not the first or the last to do so.
The movie will be produced by David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith, who also worked on IT. Newcomer Lars Klevberg will direct, and Tyler Burton Smith, who wrote the video game Quantum Break, has written the screenplay. Production is set to beginning this September in Vancouver. So far, no official cast has been announced, nor is there a tentative premiere date for the final product.
While I have no particular love for Chuckie, or the Child’s Play franchise, it will be cool to see what new technological advances could bring to the story, both in terms of special effects and the plot. It’s also interesting to hear they are veering away from the movie’s original formula, hopefully for the better and not because they think it’ll sell more tickets.