Chucky returns to theaters this June in Lars Klevberg’s Child’s Play remake, which will totally reimagine the tiny terror. Star Wars legend Mark Hamill is voicing the character, originally played by Brad Dourif, who was only just revealed in full via an image the actor shared last week.
Now, we have this still from the movie, courtesy of Fandango, which shows a different side to the villain, as it depicts him playing a board game with his owner, young Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman). As the trailers have made clear, this new take on Chucky isn’t possessed by a serial killer’s soul but is a Buddi Doll, a state-of-the-art A.I. toy that somehow ends up with murder on its mind.
As this image shows, though, Chucky won’t be that way from the beginning. Producer Seth Grahame-Smith has explained that there’ll be an unexpectedly “sweet” bond between the lonely Andy and his best friend at first before things take a darker turn. This was also part of the influence of classic 80s films like E.T. on the project, with star Aubrey Plaza describing the remake as having a “Spielbergian vibe.”
Not that it’s going to be a cosy ride or anything, as the producer also promised the film will make the most of its R-rating and feature a lot of “intensity” and “gore.” We wouldn’t expect anything less from the pint-sized psychopath in dungarees.
Though you might think the simplest way of going about recreating Chucky would be to make him mostly CGI, Klevberg has also clarified that he aimed to use animatronics as much as possible to give the actors something to work off and to make the doll feel more real, with the split between the two methods ending up at around 80/20.
We’ll see if that approach paid off when Child’s Play slices and dices its way into cinemas on June 21st.
