Child’s Play is a good example of when a story should have already stopped but somehow the fans and the writers have found ways to keep it going over the years. Taking inspiration from Hannibal in his own way, Don Mancini has somehow managed to push the idea of being excited about seeing another version of Child’s Play that might be far more connected to the actual story than the most recent movie was. Even having Mark Hamill voice the murderous doll didn’t really make much of a difference since the remake didn’t have the same feel as the original, which feels like those behind its continued production started throwing ideas at the wall to see what would stick. Quite a few people have expressed a serious dislike of how Child’s Play has turned out over the years, but far more have been firmly behind the idea for just as long, even when Seed of Chucky and the like came out. There’s something about the horror franchise that people like, and no matter how much some of us don’t like it, the franchise is still around and people want to watch it, so to each their own. Taking his inspiration from Hannibal isn’t too hard to imagine, but here’s what Mancini had to say via Screenrant:
“That’s when I started imagining doing the same thing with Chucky, having eight hours of narrative to play with and doing it with a bunch of like-minded horror geeks and legit Chucky fanatics. I’ve been around for quite a while now, and I meet a lot of younger people who love the franchise and who grew up on it, and so I felt, wow, if I can cultivate the excitement that they have for Chucky, in the same way I felt Bryan Fuller was able to cultivate my and the other writers’ excitement for Hannibal, we could have something really special. At the same time, one of the things I’ve always tried to do with the franchise over the years is find ways of reinventing it. I realized that taking it into the medium of television would change the lens through which we view the characters in the franchise in a potentially really fruitful way. Just having eight hours of story to deal with necessarily puts you in a position where you’re dealing much more with characters and relationships than you can in any single 90-minute movie.”
No matter how one feels about Child’s Play, Mancini’s explanation does make a lot of sense. There isn’t a lot of point when it comes to creating something if the creator doesn’t have the passion to make it happen. That definitely isn’t the issue here, and in fact, it’s fair to say that Chucky might be going back to his roots with this upcoming show given that a few key actors are coming back to help make it happen. Brad Dourif, one of the most important individuals in the entire franchise, is coming back to voice the main character, and he’ll be joined by several others as well. It’s been tough to get psyched about any Child’s Play movie for a while, even with Dourif in his customary role. But perhaps there’s something to be said for this upcoming show, especially since it’s bringing back a couple of favorites.
Child’s Play is definitely one of the horror movies that came out with a great deal of expectation, but by the second movie, things were starting to get kind of silly since it was apparent that the rules of the horror movie were being played around with in a manner that wasn’t entirely feasible. By the time the third movie came out, some people were ready to say goodbye and call it quits with the franchise. A good number came back when the movies kept rolling forward, but once the remake came out there was a general divide between long-time fans and those that had just been turned on to the franchise. It’s very easy to state that Child’s Play is not a universally loved horror franchise, but the fact is that a lot of people still love it regardless of anything that’s happened, and plenty of those people are in a position to bring the idea back to the mainstream so long as people are willing to watch.
It sounds as though the series will be headed to TV this coming October, which is the perfect time for Child’s Play to be seen again, so we won’t have long to wait and see how this show will stack up. Given the fact that it appears to be trying to go back to the original story, it’s easy to think that it might be a nostalgic look back at the past, in one way or another. This could be interesting.
Follow Us
