'Child's Play' Remake Won't Have Supernatural Elements, But Will Be Similar To 'Small Soldiers' For Some Reason

The Child's Play remake that no one wants continues to move forward, and some newly surfaced plot details reaffirm that this whole endeavor is ill-advised. The new take on the old story will allegedly remove all traces of the supernatural, and boil the plot down to something akin to Small Soldiers rather than Child's Play.

Comic Book has the potential Child's Play plot details, and let's just say they're not great. A caveat: these details come from an unspecified, unconfirmed "source", so there's always a chance they're not 100% accurate. That said, they line-up with what's been previously reported about the project. Per the source, the new Chucky in the Child's Play remake is "a defective 'Buddy doll' whose programming code was hacked so that he has no limitations to learning and also violence."

This immediately raises a red flag for me, for several reasons. First and foremost: Chucky isn't a Buddy Doll, whatever the hell that is. He's a Good Guy Doll. Are they jettisoning the Good Guy brand entirely, or did this source get it wrong?

Beyond that, though, is the news that this new take on Chucky is nixing the supernatural element completely. The original Child's Play found serial killer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) using voodoo to transport his evil soul into the body of a doll. Rather than do that again, the new Child's Play is more or less telling the story about killer A.I., like Westworld or the Joe Dante comedy Small Soldiers. When new of the Child's Play remake first broke, it was reported the movie would  be "a contemporary reboot involving a group of kids (a la Stranger Things), and a technologically-advanced doll that enters their world," and this certainly seems to confirm that.

Comic Book's source also mentions that the Child's Play remake will feature a "Chinese factory worker who commits suicide shortly after re-programming a Buddy doll to have no limitations." This is...curious. Why does this mysterious factory worker do this? And why does he have the power to change a toy into a killing machine? You'd think a lowly factory worker wouldn't have such skills. But hey, what do I know – I think this entire idea is terrible.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Child's Play doesn't need a reboot. Franchise creator Don Mancini has remained with the series since the beginning, and has consistently found ways to evolve the films in new and exciting ways. This approach has helped the franchise remain fresh and fun, and rebooting it – and rebooting it in such a drastically different manner, ignoring all the details that made the original so memorable – is silly.

All is not lost, though. While the Child's Play reboot is an inevitability now, Mancini and company will continue making their own Child's Play projects separately. There's a Child's Play TV series in the works, and a new Chucky movie from Mancini is likely to happen as well. The remake will be an outlier, and, like most ill-advised horror remakes, it will likely fade from memory after it hits theaters. Or maybe I'm wrong! Maybe the Child's Play remake will end up being a pleasant surprise. Anything is possible.

Lars Klevberg, director of the completed but not-yet-released horror film Polaroid, is directing the Child's Play remake from a script by Tyler Burton Smith. The film is scheduled to begin shooting next month.