Home viewing:
Child’s Play is available in the US on Digital on September 10, 2019, and Blu-ray + Digital and DVD on September 24, 2019. Blu-ray and DVD Bonus Features:
- The Making of Child’s Play
- Bringing Child’s Play’s Chucky to Life
- Soundtrack Trailer
- Lee Hardcastle Claymations:
- Toy Massacre
- A.I. Mayhem
- Theatrical Trailer
- Gallery
As part of the movie’s promotion, artist Ghoulish” Gary Pullin was commissioned by Orion to produce a limited edition poster (above).
Bear McCreary (Godzilla: King of the Monsters; The Walking Dead; Happy Death Day 2U; Hell Fest; et al) composed the soundtrack for their Child’s Play reboot. Several reviews have praised McCreary’s score.
Box office:
By the end of its theatrical run, Child’s Play had taken $44,902,237 globally, slightly below expectations after a fairly sustained and sometimes amusing publicity campaign by Orion that referenced Toy Story 4 being released the same day. The reported budget was $10 million.
Initial backlash:
Soon after the project was announced, Jennifer Tilly, star of Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky, tweeted her disdain at the new Child’s Play movie, saying “New “Chucky” movie? Ummm… no. Tiffany and I are gonna sit this one out. #NotmyChucky”
As part of the film’s promo, the following faux press release was issued:
Kaslan Corp, the world’s leading developer of interactive tech products for home and lifestyle, is excited to reveal a revolutionary new product – the Artificial Intelligence human companion, Buddi®. A child’s playmate and new best friend, Buddi® will change the lives of everyone in the family in unimaginable ways. Able to connect to and control Kaslan’s wide range of tech products and all smart home devices, Buddi® is the world’s most advanced AI human companion to date and will be available nationwide on June 21, 2019.
Consumers have been living with AI assistants in their homes for nearly eight years with the introduction of Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and other devices. You can ask AI assistants to play a song, provide directions, forecast the weather, turn off your house lights and much more. But to date, a true relationship-building opportunity with AI has been outside the bounds of imagination. Until now.
“The leap we’re making beyond any current AI technology presents a similar gulf between the calculator and the most advanced smartphone assistants. Buddi® is where we’ve all been headed in the field of AI, and I’m proud to say that Kaslan Corporation is bringing that future into the homes of families across the world,” said Henry Kaslan, founder/CEO of Kaslan Corporation.
Buddi® features an exciting range of killer tech and programming, including:
- Highly intricate cloud-backed voice recognition engine capable of identifying speech and comprehension of inflection, tonality and subtle variations in the human voice
- Ability to learn from human interaction and via 20 sensors and cameras that provide real-time information about its environment
- State-of-the-art sensor design providing high resolution image recognition and grip sensitivity
- Preloaded with the ability to comprehend and converse in both English and Spanish, with the option for language expansion via the Kaslan Language Acquisition App
- Connectivity to the latest Kaslan products including the Kaslan HUB home controller, Kaslan VAC robotic vacuum, Kaslan Speakers, Kaslan Drone, the self-driving Kaslan Kar, and other smart home devices
- And so much more!
Henry Kaslan, founder/CEO of Kaslan Corporation, invites everyone to meet Buddi® on February 8, and experience the future of AI…”
Previously, The Hollywood Reporter‘s Richard Newby had noted: “While discussions of a Child’s Play reboot have been bounced around for years, the news comes as something of a surprise given that the Child’s Play franchise, since rebranded as the Chucky franchise, is still ongoing, and stronger than ever. As one of the few horror franchise’s to be born out of the era to hold onto a single continuity, the news of a reboot feels like a blow to horror fans.”
Meanwhile, Child’s Play creator Don Mancini, who is developing a Child’s Play TV series, plus more film sequels to follow the favourably received Cult of Chucky (2017), has expressed his dissatisfaction with MGM’s decision to suddenly develop a reboot – without his involvement – and posted a link to The Hollywood Reporter article quoted above. Loyal Chucky fans have been quick to support Mancini’s dismay.
Don Mancini has expressed further exasperation with the reboot in an interview with Mick Garris on the Post Mortem podcast. He said:
“MGM retained the rights to the first movie, so they’re rebooting that. They asked [producer] David Kirschner and I if we wanted to be executive producers. We said no thank you because we have our ongoing thriving business with Chucky. Obviously, my feelings were hurt. You know, I had just done two movies… forgive me if I sound defensive, [they] were both at 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. Even though they didn’t get theatrical releases, they were well regarded. And I did create the character and nurture the franchise for three f*cking decades.
“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 patronised. 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 (2017). 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.
“The people who are making that movie, they don’t know how that’s going to affect my livelihood. It’s not just a paycheck. It’s very personal. MGM’s screwing with that… potentially.”
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