‘Child’s Play’: Mark Hamill Will Be The Voice Of Chucky In Killer Remake
Services to share this page.
After decades as a heroic action figure,Mark Hamill is going to be Hollywood’s most demonic doll. TheStar Wars stalwart who has portrayed Luke Skywalker in four feature films to date will provide the voice of the iconichorror character Chucky in the Orion Pictures revival of theChild’s Play franchise.
Hamill joins a cast that includes Aubrey Plaza, Gabriel Bateman, and Brian Tyree Henry in the “contemporary re-imagining” of the 1988 horror hit that follows the malevolent path of a Buddi doll that is sentient, bloodthirsty, and not as friendly as his smile. The news was announced at Orion’s pane presentation today at WonderCon, in Anaheim. Fans bellowed their excitement when Hamill appeared on overhead video screens in a taped greeting.
Related Stories
“If you’re wondering who’s going to play Chucky in the newChild’s Play,” the bearded Hamill said, “you’re looking at him.”
Watch on Deadline
It’s a big year for Hamill. He can be seen in medieval mode in History’sKnightfall, the Knights Templar series now in its Season 2. Hamill will be a knight of a more cosmic variety this December when Disney’s Lucasfilm releases Star Wars: Episode IX. The J.J. Abrams-directed film has been billed as the concluding chapter of the Skywalker family screen saga that has made cinema history for more than four decades.
Hamill is an accomplished voice actor with scores of credits in animated films, television cartoons, video games, radio dramas, and web projects. The signature role among his voice credits to date is the Joker, the DC Comics villain he portrayed first in 1992 onBatman: The Animated Series and then it’s tie-in 1993 feature film,Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. The maniacal energy Hamill has brought to the Joker in follow-up animation projects (as well as video games, among them Arkham Asylum) has established the Clown Prince of Crime as perhaps the best-reviewed role of Hamill’s entire acting career.
Last year marked the 30th anniversary of the originalChild’s Play, which effectively melded the slasher terror of Halloween with the equally scary Cabbage Patch Dolls fad to deliver historic horror results. The original became such a cult classic that Chucky now ranks up with Jason, Freddy, Leatherface, Pinhead, and Ghostface on the all-time honor roll of one-name icons of R-rated horror. The movie has echoed throughout pop culture and influenced non-horror works, too, among themToy Story andTed.
Brad Dourif was the voice of Chucky in the original film as well as in all four of its theatrically releasedsequels, the most recent being Seed of Chucky in 2004. Dourif also portrayed the character in two direct-to-video releases,Curse of Chucky in 2013 and Cult of Chucky in 2017.
For the new revamp, Lars Klevberg(Polaroid) directs from a script by Tyler Burton Smith based on the original motion picture. David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith produce under their KatzSmith Productions banner. Orion Pictures will releaseChild’s Play on June 21 through their United Artists Releasing banner. “More Than A Toy… He’s Your Best Friend,” is the tagline.
In the newChild’s Play, Hamill will play a sinister entity that has been updated to match today’s marketplace concepts of playthings. This time around, Buddi is an “Artificial Intelligence human companion” manufactured by the Kaslan Corp, the world’s leading developer of interactive tech products for home and lifestyle. When Karen (Plaza), a single mother, gifts one of the state-of-the-art toys to her son, Andy (Bateman), playtime takes a terrifying turn.
WonderCon runs through Sunday. The pop-culture expo is the sister event of Comic-Con International in San Diego. The80th anniversary of Batman, which arrives this Sunday, is a major theme of this year’s edition. The Anaheim event has a slate of presentations for film and television projects that include The Big Bang Theory, Dark Phoenix, Fear the Walking Dead, Stargirl, Swamp Thing, NOS4A2,Hanna, Deadly Class, Into the Badlands,Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger,Legion, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, The Twilight Zone, A Conversation of Witches, and an unspecified preview from Warner Bros./New Line.
Read More About:
Subscribe to Deadline
Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.
26 Comments
- herm
Great choice! Don Mancini fanboys can stay mad.
- Joe
How is it a revival when the original series is till on going in both movies, and soon to be tv series. this really is nothing more than a cash grab cause MGM/Orion owns the title childs play.
- alex
Pumped for Aubrey Plaza more than anything. She is a favorite and now will have to show some acting chops to go along with her incredible dead-pan, P&R sass.
- Anonymous
Why doesn’t anyone cast him as himself in some kind of comedy, interview show or podcast? He’s quirky funny and smart.
- Anonymous
It bugs me how news sites always first refer to only being a Jedi hero, when for many many years he’s played the perfect voice for the joker in many Batman things. Seriously, he plays it to a T, and if you’ve heard that stuff you should even be more excited for child’s play
Sidebar
Trending on Deadline
Signup for Breaking News Alerts & Newsletters
By providing your information, you agree to ourTerms of Use and ourPrivacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the GooglePrivacy Policy andTerms of Service apply.
