Being one of the biggest directors ever brings with it a lot of power. There are a lot of ways to use that power. Fortunately, Steven Spielberg has opted to use that power to help good actors get good roles and, apparently, save cult classic film franchises.
That story comes from Bloody Disgusting, sharing a fun anecdote from David Kirschner, one of the two creators of the Child’s Play series, notoriously for its B-movie style and its creepy villain/protagonist Chucky.
So, after the first movie did rather well, a second Child’s Play was ordered—only for Kirschner to get a nightmare call from Richard Burger, the head of MGM and United Artists, who had distributed the first film.
“There’s a guy by the name of Christopher Skase at Quintex, they’re buying the company and don’t want to make horror movies,’ he said. I was enraged,” relates Kirschner.
After that, all chaos broke loose, with multiple studios interested in the series, its direction and future on the line. “One of those calls was from Steven Spielberg himself,” said Kirschner.
He went on, saying, “An American Tail became the highest grossing animated film of all time, at the time. Steven (who executive produced the film) said, ‘Look, you made your first film with Universal, just give them your wish list of what you want and I would have done my job in giving them the first crack at it.’”
“I owe my career to him and that’s still the case today – I went back to them and said, ‘Because of Steven, we’re bringing it to you first,’ and they met almost all of the demands. That’s how we got into the relationship with Universal when five other studios were bidding on it.”
And that relationship has paid off—leading to six sequels and an upcoming television show, with creators Don Mancini and David Kirschner still involved. Sure, Child’s Play might have found a home at another studio, but the shape it is now, according to Kirschner, owes quite a bit to Steven Spielberg. Scary dolls all over the world thank him for his service.
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9 responses to “Once Upon A Time, Steven Spielberg Apparently Helped Save The Child’s Play Franchise”
Yep, adding to the upcoming television show with Don Mancini’s involvement, is a soulless remake of the original. However in this remake, which Mancini, Dourif and other original members refuse to have anything to do with, ‘Chucky’, which the doll apparently won’t be called, will instead be a ‘high tech doll’ whose programming goes haywire and decides to kill anyone around it. Sounds like a classic… ugh.
That probably has more to do with most of them are busy working on the third movie in the new Chucky trilogy, which has been awesome.
Nope. Most of them are working on the tv show, no new movie. The tv show is stemming off the last movie, the new movie is something that’s just being made out of rights that the studio owns, it’s a cash grab out of nostalgia, and that’s all.
From the sounds of your first comment, it’s the TV show which is the souless cash grab. From what I know the last 2 movies were successful enough for a third to be made to close things out. This includes speaking with members of the crew during the last round of media junkets.
Not if you read it correctly. The remake is the soulless cash grab. The last two movies were successful enough but Mancini has been granted the ability to do a television series, at this point that’s his focus. There’s unfortunately been no announcement officially at this point of any movie following on from Cult of Chucky, which I’d personally love, but there has been the official announcement however that the tv show has been greenlit and is going ahead at least. So we’re getting that which will be great.
Thank god! Chucky is my favourite horror villain. Child’s Play 2 is my favourite movie of all time. Now if I could just forget about Seed, I’d be super happy!
I see things as two different trilogies: Childs Play 1-3 and Chucky (2013-2017). Bride and Seed do not exist.
Worth mentioning that that was THE Christopher Skase, the financial fraudster that fled Australia for Majorca
Indeed, which is a weird connection for Australian readers, but would have meant nothing to people elsewhere.