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Child’s Play
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Lars Klevberg
Screenplay by	Tyler Burton Smith
Produced by	David Katzenberg Seth Grahame-Smith
Starring	Aubrey Plaza Gabriel Bateman Brian Tyree Henry Tim Matheson Ty Consiglio Beatrice Kitsos Mark Hamill
Cinematography	Brendan Uegama
Edited by	Tom Elkins Julia Wong
Music by	Bear McCreary
Production companies	Orion Pictures KatzSmith Productions BRON Creative
Distributed by	United Artists Releasing
Release date	June 21, 2019 (2019-06-21) (United States)
Running time	90 minutes
Countries	United States Canada
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$44.9 million

Child's Play is a 2019 horror film written by Tyler Burton Smith and directed by Lars Klevberg, serving as a remake of the 1988 film of the same name and a reboot of the Child's Play franchise. The film stars Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry, Tim Matheson, Ty Consiglio, Beatrice Kitsos, and Mark Hamill as the voice of Chucky. The plot follows a family terrorized by a high-tech doll who becomes self-aware and subsequently murderous.

Child's Play was released in the United States on June 21, 2019, by Orion Pictures through United Artists Releasing. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the dark humor, performances and origin story but found its tone inconsistent and criticized the dolls’ design and movement. The film grossed over $44.9 million worldwide against a $10 million budget.

Plot

The multinational Kaslan Corporation, where CEO Henry Kaslan () has just launched Buddi, a revolutionary line of high technological A.I. dolls designed to be life-long companions to their owners, learning from their surroundings and acting accordingly. Buddi dolls can also connect to and operate other Kaslan products, quickly becoming a success for children worldwide. At a Buddi assembly factory in Vietnam, an employee is fired by his supervisor for insufficient work. In retaliation, the employee disables the doll's safety protocols, before killing himself. The doll is packed alongside others in preparation for international delivery, showing glowing red eyes.

In Chicago, (the same setting from the original film), retail clerk Karen Barclay, (Aubrey Plaza) and her 13-year-old hearing-impaired son, Andy Barclay, (Gabriel Bateman) have moved into their new apartment, where Karen encourages her son to make new friends while she prepares for his upcoming birthday. Andy instead sits by himself in the hallway, playing on his phone. He ends up meeting detective Mike Norris, (Brian Tyree Henry), who lives across the hall from him. In an attempt to cheer Andy up and make up for the unease caused by the relocation and her new boyfriend Shane, () Karen blackmails her boss in order to procure a Buddi doll and introduces it to Andy as an early birthday gift. Once Andy activates the doll, it shows how bad it functions. After the doll imprints Andy's face, it names itself Chucky, (voiced by Mark Hamill) and becomes attached to Andy. Over time, Chucky helps Andy befriend two other children in the building, Falyn () and Pugg (). But Chucky also begins to display violent tendencies and uses profanity after hearing it. He strangles the family's pet cat after it scratches Andy. Chucky says he only hurt the cat because it hurt Andy. The following night, while Andy and his friends gleefully watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part II, Chucky starts mimicking the violence on the screen, thinking it makes the kids happy, and approaches the trio with a kitchen knife, while repeating "Heads up, bitch!", before Andy disarms him.

Chucky accidentally cuts Andy on the arm, and he leaves Chucky behind while he goes to hang out with his friends, leaving the doll distraught and confused. Andy arrives home the next day to find that his cat is dead. Chucky admits to having killed it so that it would not hurt him anymore. Karen locks the doll in a glass cabinet, but he escapes and terrorizes Shane, which leads him to confront Andy. After misunderstanding Andy's pleas for Shane to disappear, Chucky smirks and his eyes glow red. (his eyes did the same before attacking the cat) Chucky follows him home, where it is revealed that Shane has a family and has been having an affair with Karen behind his wife's back. While Shane is outside taking down Christmas lights, Chucky makes the ladder fall, causing Shane to break his leg before activating a tiller which begins pulling the lights, now tangled around Shane, closer and closer to the blades. Chucky jumps on Shane's chest and says that nobody will ever hurt "his best buddy" and says "This is for Tupac!" before letting the tiller scalp him and Chucky cuts off Shane's face off-screen. The following day, Chucky delivers Shane's skinned face as a gift to a horrified Andy, proving Chucky is becoming self-aware and dangerous.

While police Mike begins an investigation, a tearful Andy brings Chucky into another room, along with Falyn and Pugg, to disable the doll and dispose of him in the dumpster. Building janitor and electrician Gabe () finds the doll and takes him to the basement to prepare him for an online sale. When Chucky awakens again, he notices Andy is friends with Doreen, () Mike's mother, who Andy reluctantly gave Shane's face to as a fake gift for supposedly helping him with homework. Chucky becomes jealous of Andy having other friends instead of him. Now repaired and fully functional, Chucky, showing his red eyes, tortures and murders Gabe with a table saw, showing how much of a dangerous, murderous and obsessed personality he has developed over time not spent with Andy. After making his way back to Andy, Chucky tells Andy, "if I can't be your friend, NO ONE will!" and Chucky lands in the possession of another kid in the building named Omar, who calls him "Chod", and proceeds to follow Doreen an kills her in a controlled car crash while on her way to bingo. Meanwhile, Andy fails to convince Karen that Chucky has become dangerous. Before they leave to participate in the opening of the "Buddi 2" dolls, Chucky takes control of all the Kaslan products in the room like a bluetooth speaker, and the t.v., while taunting Andy about how they will always be together, no matter what. Andy destroys both before Karen walks in on Andy's rampage, and takes him to her shift.

Mike, who now believes Andy is possibly the killer due to him being linked to the murders, travels to the mall and apprehends him just before Chucky takes full control of the building by turning the lights off and manipulating the t.v. screen, showing an manipulated version of Henry Kaslan's video message about the dolls and Chucky appears on-screen at the end, (making his presence known to the crowd), saying "Time... To... Play!". Chaos is unleashed as several employees and customers are brutally attacked and killed by rampaging Buddi dolls and Buddi bears, now under Chucky's control, and he triggers the lock down sequence, hoping to keep everyone from escaping. As Andy runs around through the mall after getting free of the handcuffs he was put in, he notices all the carnage taking place. Chucky manipulates Andy's hearing aids, telling him "they're all leaving you, but not me!". Mike is wounded among the massacre, and Andy and his friends manage to reach the exit, only for Andy to be forced to return when Chucky reveals that he is holding Karen hostage with intent to kill her if Andy doesn't come back to him. Andy grabs a chainsaw nearby after making sure his friends get out safe.

While Andy walks to the back room, a toy police car, (with Robocop's voice), controlled by Chucky, appears. Andy follows it to the back, as Chucky starts telling Andy that it will end soon and Andy will thank him when Karen's gone, in his words, "When they're ALL gone!", before knocking Andy out with a shovel. When Andy wakes up, Chucky stands on Andy's chest, saying how he was broken (possibly meaning his heart) and that he is fixed, and he questions if Andy is "broken" too or if he doesn't want to be happy with the doll, and he should "open him up and see what we're dealing with". Andy gets up on a shelf and the doll jumps from a pile of boxes and jumps on Andy. As they struggle, Andy grabs onto the rope that Karen is being hanged from. Chucky tells Andy that he will only have one friend... him. Andy uses Chucky's knife to cut the rope so Karen can be saved. (As Andy dropped the chainsaw and it broke when the doll tackled him.) Andy is pinned as Chucky grabs the knife, and hops on Andy's chest, telling him that he was broken, (presumably his feelings), and that he has to "open him up, and see what they're dealing with". Andy starts singing the Buddi song to distract Chucky long enough to knock him on the floor. Andy grabs the knife and Chucky Andy stabs him in the power cell, as Chucky says "Andy... I thought we were friends", giving a sad look. Andy gives a look of regret as the doll shorts out and begins to apparently power down. Andy starts walking away as a now livid Chucky says: "You are my buddy, until the END!", leaping in the air and attempting to attack Andy one last time before Mike shoots Chucky in the side, remarking "This IS the end". Karen frees herself and grabs the doll, screaming not to mess with her son before pulling Chucky's head off his neck, destroying him once and for all.

Andy and Karen reunite and hug each other. While paramedics tend to Karen and Mike, they hold hands, as Karen gives a look of thanks. Andy and the rest of his friends take Chucky's lifeless body in a nearby alleyway to smash it and watch it burn in a barrel. In the aftermath of Chucky's killing spree, Henry Kaslan issues a statement regarding what Chucky caused. Henry Kaslan narrates over the scene, saying, "Your Buddi is your best friend. Your friend, 'till the end". As one of the Buddi dolls are shown being placed into the storage shelves, its eyes flicker red and it smirks. As the credits end, Chucky's voice is heard once more, as he sings the Buddi song, but instead of saying "'till the day that I die", he says, "'till the day that YOU die." and gives a sinister giggle.

Cast

• Aubrey Plaza as Karen Barclay, Andy’s widowed single mother who does not believe her son that Chucky is the killer.
• Gabriel Bateman as Andy Barclay, Karen's 13-year-old son with a hearing aid who comes into the possession of Chucky, a murderous Buddi doll.
• Brian Tyree Henry as Detective Mike Norris, a detective investigating a mysterious string of murders.
• Mark Hamill as the voice of Chucky, a once-harmless Buddi doll transformed into a bloodthirsty killing machine after being maliciously reprogrammed. Hamill also voices other Buddi dolls seen in the film, and previously voiced Chucky on an episode of Robot Chicken.
• Tim Matheson as Henry Kaslan, founder and CEO of Kaslan Corporation, the company that manufactures the Buddi dolls.
• Marlon Kazadi as Omar, a neighbor of Andy and one of his new friends.
• Beatrice Kitsos as Falyn, one of Andy's new friends.
• Ty Consiglio as Pugg, one of Andy's new friends.
• David Lewis as Shane, Karen's married boyfriend who is mean and abusive towards Andy.
• Trent Redekop as Gabe, the voyeurist electrician of the building.
• Carlease Burke as Doreen Norris, Norris' mother and neighbor of the Barclays.
• Nicole Anthony as Detective Willis, Norris' partner.

Production

On July 3, 2018, it was announced that a reboot of Child's Play was in development at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with a different creative team than the original film series. Lars Klevberg signed on as director, with a script by Tyler Burton Smith (of Polaroid and Quantum Break fame, respectively). It and It Chapter Two collaborative team Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg served as producers. In September 2018, Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza, and Brian Tyree Henry were set to star. In November 2018, Ty Consiglio and Beatrice Kitsos joined the cast.

Principal photography began on September 17 and wrapped on November 8, 2018, in Vancouver, Canada. Reshoots occurred on December 15–16 and in April 2019. MastersFX, a visual effects company, took six weeks to prepare and assemble seven practical animatronic puppets, each with interchangeable arms and heads that performed a variety of required actions on set, with some help from Pixomondo, who provided the CGI for the film. Bear McCreary composed the score through a "toy orchestra" inspired by "Chucky's toy-store origins" with toy pianos, hurdy-gurdies, accordions, plastic guitars and otamatones.

In March 2019, actor Mark Hamill announced that he joined the cast to voice Chucky in the film. Grahame-Smith elaborated on Hamill's casting in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, saying:

We asked, thinking there was no way it would ever happen, and he said, 'Yes.' He was the first choice, a big swing, and it just happened... I mean, first of all, to have an icon reimagining an iconic character is an incredible gift, and to have an actor and a voice performer who is as celebrated as Mark Hamill, and as gifted as he is, I mean it's incredible. He's taking on this challenge with a huge amount of energy and really come at it in a very serious way. And it's really something to watch him create a character, and sort of embody it, and I get to sit there and watch Mark Hamill record. It's just incredible.

Marketing

The first official image of Chucky was released on September 21, 2018. The teaser poster was released on November 12, 2018, revealing that for the film's adaptation the Good Guys dolls would be called Buddi, referencing the My Buddy doll that influenced the original character's design. A WiFi symbol over the "i" in "Buddi" teases the character's hi-tech functions, being similar to robot toys, such as Furby and RoboSapien. Orion Pictures launched a marketing website for the fictional Kaslan Corporation, ahead of the film's release. The first trailer premiered on February 8, 2019, with the release of The Prodigy.

The film's theatrical poster was released on April 17, 2019 and the second trailer on April 18, 2019. On May 16, 2019, a behind-the-scenes video was uploaded to Orion Pictures' YouTube channel, which shows how Chucky was brought to life for the film. Beginning April 2019, several posters alluding to Toy Story 4 were released, featuring Chucky brutally killing characters of the animated franchise, using the Toy Story 4's teaser posters' background. Both films were June 21, 2019 releases. On June 24, a poster was unveiled to coincide with the impending release of Annabelle Comes Home, altering one of that film's posters to imply Chucky's attack on the Annabelle doll.

Release

The film was released in the United States on June 21, 2019. It is the first film from Orion Pictures to be released through United Artists Releasing.

The film was released digitally on September 10, 2019 and on Blu-ray and DVD on September 24, 2019 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Reception

Box office

Child's Play has grossed $29.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $14.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $44.9 million, against a production budget of $10 million.

In the United States and Canada, Child's Play was released alongside Toy Story 4 and Anna, and was projected to gross $16–18 million from 3,007 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $6.1 million on its first day, including $1.65 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $14.1 million, and finishing second, behind Toy Story 4. The film dropped 68.6% in its second weekend to $4.4 million, falling to eighth.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 63% based on 192 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Child's Play updates an '80s horror icon for the Internet of Things era, with predictably gruesome – and generally entertaining – results." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 47 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C +" on an A+ to F scale, the lowest score of the series.

Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave the film three out of four stars, calling it "nastier, more playful, and just as good if not better than the original film." Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian gave the film a positive review, with 4/5 stars, calling it a "Chilrazor-sharp and exquisitely gruesome toy story". Jeremy Dick from MovieWeb also liked the film, writing "Child's Play is the perfect horror movie remake and should now serve as a prime example of what others should do. It's highly entertaining and tons of fun, and I say that as a huge fan of the original."

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, writing, "MIA is the original's perverse originality... in a misguided satire of the digital era and millennial consumerism". Variety's Peter Debruge was also negative, stating, "This is the new normal for horror movies: The screenplays have to seem hipper than the premise they represent, which puts Child's Play in the weird position of pointing out and poking fun at all the ways it fails to make sense."

Future

At WonderCon, Grahame-Smith said that if the film does well, they would love to make more sequels. Director Lars Klevberg discussed his ideas for a possible sequel: "For me, this was just trying to make this the best movie possible. Like, never foreshadowing any detailed plan of where you want to go as a franchise. But yeah, for me I think I love the Buddi bear concept."

References

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41. Travers, Peter (June 21, 2019). "'Child's Play': Even Aubrey Plaza Can't Save This Botched Reboot". Rolling Stone. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
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44. Burwick, Kevin (June 23, 2019). "Child's Play Remake Director Talks Possible Sequel Storyline". MovieWeb.

External links

• Official website
• Child's Play at IMDb
• Child's Play at Box Office Mojo
• Template:Amg movie
• Child's Play at Rotten Tomatoes

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