A little Chucky goes a long way, with the Child’s Play franchise turning out to be a surprisingly sustainable horror property. From the 1988 original to last year’s Cult of Chucky, the psychotic doll’s seven feature films have even managed to stick to a consistent narrative continuity, and when you consider that the Halloween series is now on its fifth timeline, that’s really not an achievement to be sniffed at.
That being said, Child’s Play is about to lose that bragging right with the upcoming franchise reboot. MGM’s decision to make this movie without the involvement or permission of series creator Don Mancini has been met with some backlash, due in part to the man himself already having plans for a canon-honoring Child’s Play: The TV Series.
Mancini made it pretty clear last month what he thinks of the studio going behind his back for their reboot, and now you can add Child’s Play 2 star Christine Elise to the list of detractors, with the actress laying into the planned project in an interview with Horror Geek Life.
“I think it’s an unbelievably huge dick move. I think it’s a douche move absolutely,” Elise told the site. “I don’t know why they would fuck with a healthy franchise. To make a competing franchise with an existing, and like you said healthy, robust franchise is super douchey. And nobody from the original franchise is involved; they’re not gonna have Brad Dourif, they’re not gonna have Don, and they’re not gonna have any of us.”
Harsh words, perhaps, but Elise is far from finished, with the actress saying:
“I think the doll is going to be an artificial intelligence doll that goes haywire, so it’s not going to have the whole element of the serial killer possessing it, et cetera, so it’s not going to be, really, a Chucky film. So I don’t know why they’re just taking the title and stealing it and mucking up the waters.
It’s especially douchey when you know that Don is developing a TV series and going back to using the title Child’s Play; not Bride of, Seed of, Curse of, Cult of Chucky, it’s going back to the Child’s Play name and it’s deep into development. So this MGM project could have, it hasn’t but it could have, really, easily derailed the TV show project, which would be devastating, because fingers crossed it happens and fingers crossed I’m involved in it, as much as I would like to be.”
Evidently, she doesn’t have many encouraging words to say about Chucky’s next film, saving her support instead for Mancini’s TV continuation of the gruesome saga.
“It’s an opportunity here where Don can further a story he’s been telling for 30 years, but rather than tell it in 90-minute segments every three years or more, he can tell 10 hours of story in 10 weeks, he can get that much more story ahead. And if you’ve seen Cult and you see how Cult ends, you know how rich in story it is, there’s so many doors open now, and to so insensitively threaten the Don Mancini empire I think, is fucked up.”
Indeed, MGM’s rebranding of Child’s Play seems pretty perplexing, especially given the unusually strong critical reception that the last two entries received, but if you’re still interested to hear how this controversial reboot turns out, you can expect further updates once filming begins next month.
