Child's Play (2019 film)

The multinational Kaslan Corporation has just launched Buddi, a revolutionary line of high-tech dolls designed to be lifelong companions to their owners, learning from their surroundings, and acting accordingly, quickly becoming a success for children worldwide. At a Kaslan assembly factory in Vietnam, an employee is fired by his supervisor for unsatisfactory performance. In retaliation, the employee tampers with the Buddi doll that he is assembling by disabling all of its safety protocols, before committing suicide. Since nobody notices this, the doll is packaged alongside others in preparation for international delivery.

In Detroit, Michigan, retail clerk Karen Barclay and her 12-year-old hearing-impaired son Andy have moved into their new apartment. 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, Wes, in order to procure a Buddi doll, giving it to Andy as an early birthday gift. Wes selects the defective specimen. Once Andy activates the doll, he names himself "Chucky" and becomes attached to his owner. Over time, Chucky helps Andy befriend two other kids in the building — Falyn and Pugg — but also begins to display violent tendencies. For instance, he tries to strangle the Barclays' pet cat after he scratches Andy, and one night, while he and his friends gleefully watch a horror film, Chucky starts mimicking the violence on the screen, approaching the trio with a kitchen knife before Andy disarms him.

The next morning, Andy arrives home to find that his cat is dead; Chucky admits to having killed him so that he would not hurt Andy anymore. Karen locks the doll in a closet, but he escapes and terrorizes Shane, which leads him to confront Andy. After overhearing Andy's pleas for Shane to be gone, Chucky follows Shane home, where it is revealed that Shane is married with children and is having an affair with Karen behind his wife's back. While Shane is outside taking down Christmas lights, Chucky breaks his legs and activates a tiller that scalps and kills him. The following day, Chucky delivers Shane's skinned face as a gift to a horrified Andy.

While police detective Mike Norris begin an investigation, Andy, Falyn, and Pugg disable Chucky and throw him in the garbage. Building voyeur and electrician Gabe finds the doll and takes him to the basement to prepare him for an online sale. Now fully repaired, Chucky tortures and murders Gabe with a table saw. After making his way back to the ground level, Chucky lands in possession of another kid named Omar and proceeds to kill Norris' mother, Doreen, in a controlled car crash. Meanwhile, Andy fails to convince Karen that the doll has become murderous, and she takes Andy along to her next shift work at the local shopping mall to keep him nearby.

Suspecting that Andy is the killer, Norris travels to the mall and arrests him just as Chucky takes full control of the building. Chaos is unleashed as several employees and customers are brutally killed by rampaging Buddi dolls while Chucky triggers the mall's lockdown sequence. Amid the massacre, Wes is murdered, Norris is wounded, 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, intending to kill her. Andy manages to free his mother while being attacked by Chucky, before stabbing him in his power cell. However, the doll attempts to attack again, only to be shot by Norris and beheaded by Karen. While paramedics tend to Karen, Norris, and other survivors outside the mall, the kids destroy and burn Chucky's body in a nearby alleyway.

In the aftermath of Chucky's killing spree, Kaslan Corporation CEO Henry Kaslan issues a statement regarding Chucky's programming, announcing a massive Buddi dolls recall. As one of the dolls is being placed into storage, its eyes flicker red and the doll smiles, revealing that Chucky transferred his artificial intelligence awareness into a new body.

• Aubrey Plaza as Karen Barclay
• Gabriel Bateman as Andy Barclay
• Brian Tyree Henry as Detective Mike Norris
• Mark Hamill as the voice of Chucky
• Tim Matheson as Henry Kaslan
• Beatrice Kitsos as Falyn
• Ty Consiglio as Pugg
• Marlon Kazadi as Omar
• David Lewis as Shane
• Carlease Burke as Doreen Norris
• Nicole Anthony as Detective Willis
• Trent Redekop as Gabe
• Amro Majzoub as Wes
• Phoenix Ly as Chien

On July 3, 2018, it was announced that a Child's Play remake 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.[3][4] In September 2018, Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza, and Brian Tyree Henry were set to star.[5][6] In November 2018, Ty Consiglio and Beatrice Kitsos joined the cast.[7]

Principal photography began on September 17 and wrapped on November 8, 2018, in Vancouver, Canada.[8] Reshoots occurred on December 15–16 and in April 2019.[9][10] 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,[11] with some help from Pixomondo, who provided the CGI for the film.[12]

In March 2019, actor Mark Hamill announced that he joined the cast to voice Chucky in the film.[13] 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.[14]

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.[15] The soundtrack was released by Waxwork Records on vinyl which featured liner notes by the composer.[16]

The first official image of Chucky was released on September 21, 2018.[17] 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.[18] 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.[19] Orion Pictures launched a marketing website for the fictional Kaslan Corporation, ahead of the film's release.[20] The first trailer premiered on February 8, 2019, with the release of The Prodigy.[21]

The film's theatrical poster was released on April 17, 2019 and the second trailer on April 18, 2019.[22] 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.[23][24] 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 had June 21, 2019 releases.[25][26][27][28] 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.[29]

At WonderCon, Grahame-Smith said that if the film does well, they would love to make a sequel.[43] 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."[44]

• Official website
• Child's Play at IMDb
• Child's Play at Box Office Mojo
• Child's Play at AllMovie
• Child's Play at Rotten Tomatoes