The Child's Play Reboot's Kills Faced Some Unusual Legal Hurdles

Child's Play Chucky

Child's Play director Lars Klevberg revealed he had some very unique legal issues to work around when it came to the doll's spate of murders in the slasher remake.

Klevberg confirmed his film couldn't have any killings which resembled anything from the original movies, as that franchise is continuing under co-creator Don Mancini at Universal. MGM does hold the rights to remake the first film, though, which led to Klevberg adapting a digitally-driven Chucky as opposed to a possessed doll.

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In terms of the murders, he revealed his Buddi doll was initially slated to decapitate Andy's father-figure Shane. Because this had been done before, he changed it so the doll skinned the man's face instead. "I think one story about that is the Shane kill, when he takes off his face," Klevberg told Bloody Disgusting. "In the original draft, Chucky chops off his head. So he puts the whole head on the desk for Andy, but apparently, they do it in the second or third one or something, so we couldn't do that."


"I was like, that's ridiculous. Why can't we? Like, they do that in any other movie," Klevberg added. "No, we can't, it's not okay. So then you’re forced [to] come up with something different, and an idea that I had was, 'Okay, can he chop off his face and stick it to a watermelon?' 'Like yeah, sure, that you can do.' 'Great, let’s do it.'"

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In Cult of Chucky, the doll also beheaded a woman named Claire, so it's understandable why the script had to be altered. This scene ironically homaged The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, which Chucky watches a lot in the reboot, and which served as a huge influence on Klevberg when he had to come up with new deaths to ensure the new vision was legally clear.

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.

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