Child’s Play: Director Lars Klevberg talks changing Chucky

The new Chucky is nothing like the one we met in the first Child’s Play back in the ‘80s, but there are good reasons for that.

As we get closer to the release of Lars Klevberg’s Child’s Play, more and more details are coming to light but not enough as to spoil the movie (at least not yet). The story went through some changes to make it more modern, but the basic story is the same: a mother gets her son a toy doll for his birthday, but the toy isn’t exactly an inanimate object.

Among the things that differ from the original movie are all the technological enhancements given to the doll and Chucky’s evil origin: there’s no voodoo involved here, instead a still unknown character programmed the doll to be evil. And, of course, Chucky’s physical image is also different… maybe too different (I insist: there’s no proportion). But there’s also those changes that we haven’t seen yet and will only be revealed when the movie hits cinemas.

Speaking to Collider during a set visit, Lars Klevberg shared a bit about the changes Chucky went through for the reboot. When I say “a bit”, I truly mean that very little was shared — there has to be some secrecy and mystery, after all. Anyway, Klevberg was asked about Chucky’s motivation in this new movie (which will clearly be much different that Charles Lee Ray’s motivations in the original story), and he kinda didn’t share much? You’ll be the judge:

"“When I read the script, one of the first things I recognized was that Chucky was a great character in terms of that he changed. He had his motivations, and it came through his interaction with humans. His way of becoming sympathetic – that was something I really wanted to look into. I viewed the story as a Greek tragedy [for] Chucky… So Chucky having different emotions in this film was important to me”."

More from Horror Movies

• Godzilla Minus One makes the King of the Monsters terrifying again
• A Creature Was Stirring scares up yuletide frights
• Pig Killer (2023): A morally ambiguous dive into shock cinema
• Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls: Demonically fun times
• Tobin Bell stars in new horror movie The Cello

He went on to explain that he doesn’t want to reveal his motivations… OK. But he did say that his motivation is something the audience will understand, so there’s that. Klevberg was also asked about Chucky’s new look, explaining he wanted the audience to connect emotionally with him (uhm…ok) and so needed him to be expressive. Maybe that’s why his face is so big and out of proportion (allow me to insist!).

Another detail he was asked about was the decision of aging Andy up. In the original movie, Andy was six — in this new movie, he is 12. He didn’t answer that but he did speak about adding more kids to the story, saying that having them become friends with Andy “deals with the core of the story as it moves along”.

And that’s it. I told you he didn’t reveal much but hopefully once the movie comes out we can come back to this and it will add to what we saw on the screen. Honestly, the thing that intrigues me the most is Chucky’s motivation. Does he want to destroy the system (aka Kaslan Corp)? Or just want to watch the world burn?

Child’s Play, starring Aubrey Plaza, Gabriel Bateman and Brian Tyree Henry will release in theaters on June 21.

Fan of the Child’s Play series? Looking forward to MGM’s reboot? Let the other demented dolls know what you think in the comment section below.