The upcoming Child’s Play reboot is proving to be pretty controversial amongst fans, and for good reason. MGM’s decision to move forward with the horror film without the involvement or permission of creator Don Mancini has been met with a fair amount of backlash, due in part to the man himself already having plans for his own Child’s Play: The TV Series. It also doesn’t help matters that the upcoming pic will put forward a considerably different origin story for the psychotic Chucky, waving away the doll’s possession-based roots to suggest a robot toy who’s been programmed for evil.
Nonetheless, MGM and Orion Pictures are soldiering on with the project and now, with production having begun, they’ve released a brief new synopsis which teases what’s to come, as well as confirming some cast members. Seen below, it reads as so:
“Child’s Play follows a mother (Aubrey Plaza) who gives her son (Gabriel Bateman) a toy doll for his birthday, unaware of its more sinister nature.”
So, short and sweet then, and while it sounds pretty similar to the original, we already know that’s not the case. From what we understand, this new-look Chucky will be introduced to the world as a “defective ‘Buddy doll’ whose programming code was hacked so that he has no limitations to learning and also violence.”
That’s certainly a major departure from the Devil Doll we’re all familiar with, which began life when Brad Dourif’s serial killer invoked a voodoo spell so that his soul was tethered to a pint-sized toy. Indeed, everything about MGM’s rebranding of Child’s Play seems pretty perplexing, especially given the unusually strong critical reception that the last two entries received.
Still, if you’re interested to see how the controversial reboot turns out, you can expect further updates to arrive shortly now that filming’s begun.