Child's Play updates many aspects of the original film for a new era. The original 1988 movie featured a version of Chucky who was actually a serial killer trapped in the body of a doll. However, the modern take is slightly more complicated, as he's a robotic "buddy" who goes on a murderous rampage after his "best friend" seems to abandon him.
All the ways culture has changed in the intervening years necessitated updating the original story and, during an interview with CBR, Child's Play director Lars Klevberg spoke about why he wanted to tweak Chucky (Mark Hamill) and Andy (Gabriel Bateman).
Although the original Chucky was malicious and cruel from the start, it takes time for the new version to learn about violence. The original's origin is tied more to magic, while the current robotic Chucky is growing artificial intelligence. Klevberg explained, "For me, as a director and storyteller of this project... removing ourselves from voodoo and incorporating AI allowed me to explore Chucky in a new way. How he turns [evil] when he's AI, to me that's not the most important thing. For me, the most important thing was to create a character or an entity who could see the world for the first time. With fresh eyes."
"So that gives me the opportunity to say something about the society we live in," he continued. "Our daily tasks, or what we do in our spare time. What we do to influence like Chucky, whose mind is open and free? You're able to create a character that has a motivation, who has a heart that you really want to present. And you feel like you understand his logic, but don't agree with it. I find that interesting with villains. You understand their motivations but you don't support their actions. That's what I like about Chucky's possessiveness of being Andy's friend and being playful and playing with Danny and protecting Andy from everyone else. That was one of the key reason why I wanted to make this movie. The fun and games of finding out why does Chucky end up in this place, when he started so different. How did A lead to Z? That was interesting."
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Chucky learns about the world from perhaps the worst potential source: an angry teenage boy. The new Child's Play ages up Andy into adolescence, making him a significantly more vital character to the scene. Klevberg said, "It's based on the story and what I want to tell. If you're seven or eight years old and you move into some new place, you'd be seeking comfort through your parents and your mom. If you're a teenager or a pre-teen like Andy, then you're dealing with internal struggles and not have the best relationship with your mother."
"You're trying to be independent," he continued. "You're struggling alone instead of going to your Mom. And that allowed me to, in the story and how Tyler wrote the script, Chucky can naturally come into Andy's role and take his Mom's relationship almost. That allows me to tell the story that, in the end, they'd go against each other and it would be emotional. So to me, that's the logic."
Directed by Lars Klevberg from a script by Tyler Burton Smith, Child's Play stars Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry, Gabriel Bateman, Tim Matheson and Mark Hamill.