Since it was announced that MGM is rebooting the Child’s Play franchise, many fans have had a less-than-warm response to the move. Despite some blowback from fans, in June of 2019, MGM will release Child’s Play , a remake of the original film created by Don Mancini.
Mancini has been mostly quiet about the reboot but has made it known he’s not on the same path with MGM, as he hopes to create a television series based on the original franchise. Mancini released Cult of Chucky , an entry to the original franchise, which was released only a year ago and Mancini had shown no signs of slowing down on releasing new movies featuring Charles Lee Ray, also known as Chucky, the killer doll harboring the soul of a serial killer.
Recently, according to ComicBook , Mancini opened up about his opinion on the new reboot, and he’s unhappy, to say the least. According to the writer and director, the upcoming Child’s Play remake was greenlit without Mancini being consulted. Mancini states that the people at MGM did reach out to ask if he wanted to sign on as executive producer of the film, to which he declined.
In fact, the filmmaker seems to have been more insulted by the offer, rather than honored.
“So when someone says, ‘Oh yeah, we would love to have your name on the film’… it was hard not to feel like I was being patronized. They just wanted our approval. Which I strenuously denied them. I hesitate to say too much about it because I don’t want to sound like I’m belly-aching too much. But the producers of that movie are the producers of IT . How would they feel if there was some legal loophole that allowed David Kirschner and I to swoop in and make our own IT movie with our own version of Pennywise and say, ‘Hey guys, we would love to put your names on it,’? I imagine they wouldn’t like it. That’s how I feel.”
Prior to Cult of Chucky , Mancini released Curse of Chucky , keeping Brad Dourif ( One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , the Lord of the Rings trilogy) as the original voice of the titular character. Although Dourif has voiced Chucky for seven films, MGM did not tap him to revise his role in the upcoming remake.
Don Mancini Talks Openly About His Feelings On MGM’s Upcoming Remake of ‘Child’s Play’ https://t.co/pW4uwokzHo
— Bloody Disgusting (@BDisgusting) December 5, 2018
Mancini later went on the record to clarify that he was taking the move very personally, as MGM was potentially affecting the filmmaker’s ability to make a living by releasing the remake.