Child's Play (2019 film)

Did You Know?

• 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.
• On March 19, 2024, Scream Factory reissued the film on Ultra HD Blu-ray as part of a collector's edition reissue of the Child's Play films.
• Director Lars Klevberg said in July 2020 that a sequel was unlikely due to Don Mancini creating the Chucky television series.

Plot

Multinational Kaslan Corporation launches Buddi, a line of high-tech dolls that learn from their surroundings via artificial intelligence. At a factory in Vietnam, a fired employee sabotages a Buddi doll by disabling its safety protocols before committing suicide. In Chicago, widowed retail clerk Karen Barclay and her twelve-year-old hearing-impaired son Andy move into a new apartment. Karen procures the tampered Buddi doll, which names itself Chucky and becomes attached to Andy.

Chucky helps Andy befriend two children, Falyn and Pugg, but begins displaying violent tendencies. Chucky kills the family cat, then terrorizes Karen's boyfriend Shane, eventually breaking his legs and killing him with a cultivator. Police detective Mike Norris investigates, and Andy, Falyn, and Pugg disable Chucky and throw him in the garbage. Electrician Gabe finds and fixes the doll, who kills him with a table saw.

Chucky kills Norris' mother in a controlled car crash, leading Norris to arrest Andy. Chucky takes control of a mall, causing chaos as Buddi dolls kill employees and customers. Norris is wounded, but Andy saves his mother Karen, and Norris shoots Chucky while Karen beheads him. Andy and his friends burn Chucky's body in an alley.

Production

Plans for a Child's Play remake began in the early 2010s with Brad Dourif set to reprise his role, but the project was cancelled. In July 2018, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced a remake with a different creative team. Lars Klevberg signed on to direct, with a script by Tyler Burton Smith. Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza, and Brian Tyree Henry were cast in September 2018, with Mark Hamill voicing Chucky. Principal photography ran from September 17 to November 8, 2018, in Vancouver, Canada, with reshoots in December 2018 and April 2019. MastersFX prepared seven practical animatronic puppets, with CGI provided by Pixomondo. Bear McCreary composed the score using a 'toy orchestra' with toy pianos, hurdy-gurdies, accordions, plastic guitars, and otamatones.

Marketing

The first look at Chucky arrived on September 29, 2018. A teaser poster on November 12 revealed the Good Guys dolls would be renamed Buddi, a nod to the My Buddy doll that inspired the original design. A WiFi symbol over the “i” in Buddi signaled the doll’s advanced tech, similar to toys like Furby and RoboSapien. Orion Pictures set up a marketing site for the fictional Kaslan Corporation before the film’s release. The first trailer debuted on February 8, 2019, attached to The Prodigy. A second trailer and theatrical poster came out in April 2019. Starting that month, posters referencing Toy Story 4 showed Chucky killing characters from that franchise. On June 24, a poster depicted Chucky killing the Annabelle doll.

Reception

Child's Play grossed $29.2 million in the United States and Canada and $15.8 million elsewhere, totaling $44.9 million against a $10 million budget. It opened to $14.1 million in its first weekend, finishing second behind Toy Story 4. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 64% approval rating based on 208 reviews, with the critical consensus calling it 'predictably gruesome – and generally entertaining.' Metacritic assigned a score of 48 out of 100, indicating mixed or average reviews.

Audiences gave it a CinemaScore of C+. Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave it three out of four stars, calling it 'nastier, more playful, and just as good if not better than the original.' Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it 4/5 stars, calling it a 'razor-sharp and exquisitely gruesome toy story.' Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave it 2 out of 5 stars, criticizing its lack of originality. Don Mancini, creator of the franchise, said his feelings were hurt by the film being made without his approval.