When it comes to the upcoming Child’s Play reboot, its journey to the screen has been somewhat of a strange ballad.
At first, fans were understandably put off by the decision to offer a new take on the franchise while the original timeline is still ongoing at another studio. Plus, lack of involvement from the series’ creator or actor Brad Dourif certainly didn’t help matters.
But once it was announced that none other than Mark Hamill had been enlisted as the new voice of Chucky, I think a fair amount of folks relaxed and said, “hey, maybe I’ll give this thing a chance.” Having already won over moviegoers in the past as both Luke Skywalker and the Joker, there’s a certain rapport Hamill has built with the public. Still, divisiveness remains following the unveiling of the latest trailer, as the picture appears a little too Saw-like.
Speaking of the new trailer, director Lars Klevberg posted his own commentary track on Instagram. And in it, he assures us that “80% of Chucky in the movie is done with animatronics.” Though usage of CGI isn’t considered abhorrent by me, I do kind of miss the days when filmmakers went the more practical route in various respects. Because of Klevberg’s decision to do this, actors can more accurately react to the villain whenever sharing a scene with him.
On that note, Klevberg added this tidbit:
“On set, Chucky was controlled and voiced by the lead puppeteer so Gabriel, who plays Andy, could interact with the doll and also improvise during takes. A lot of Chucky’s behavior is based on researching small toddlers when they were problem-solving.”
I’m not sure what kind of problems those toddlers were solving, but I’m hoping they weren’t nearly as violent as what’s been witnessed in the footage thus far provided. Then again, one of them could’ve been an engineering prodigy.
Child’s Play arrives in theaters on June 21st.