Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures (MGM) announced that its contemporary reboot of the horror franchise Child’s Play, featuring everyone’s favorite evil doll Chucky, has just begun principal photography.
Aubrey Plaza (Ingrid Goes West) and Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta) are headlining the picture, which went into production this week in Vancouver under the helm of filmmaker Lars Klevberg (Polaroid). Tyler Burton Smith wrote the screenplay based on the 1988 film.
David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith will produce under their KatzSmith Productions banner. The duo produced last year’s smash hit remake of It, the highest grossing horror film of all time bringing in $700 million at the global box office. Aaron Schmidt and Chris Ferguson will executive produce.
Collaborating with Klevberg is a creative team led by Director of Photography Brendan Uegama (CW’s Riverdale, Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), production designer Dan Hermansen (Star Trek: Beyond, Godzilla), editor Tom Elkins (Annabelle, Inferno), costume designer Jori Woodman (The Boy, Final Destination 5), and special effects supervisor Dan Keeler (Fox’s The X Files, Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle).
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In the original Child’s Play movie series created by Don Mancini, Brad Dourif played a serial killer who used voodoo to place his spirit in a ‘Good Guy Doll,’ which would become the Chucky we all know and love. Though Mancini and producer David Kirschner are currently working on making more Child’s Play movies, as well as a TV series, with Dourif still voicing Chucky, this new take on Child’s Play by MGM will essentially be a competing property, and Mancini and company will not be involved at all. So, it’s essential that MGM separated their Chucky from the one audiences have known since the late 1980s.
The Child’s Play series has been running for 30 years, with the first film dropping in 1988 to box office success, generally positive reviews and a cult following, spawning six sequels that remained box office successes but slowly started earning more mixed and negative reviews, until the revitalized Curse of Chucky, which returned to the franchise’s horror roots and earned very positive reviews. The most recent installment, Cult of Chucky, was released on Blu-ray and video on demand last October and received strong reviews from critics. Brad Dourif has been a staple of the franchise since its inception, lending his voice to the murderous doll in all of the films.
