Don Mancini wrote all seven Child’s Play films as well as having directed the last three instalments – And yet, MGM decided to not have him be involved in the upcoming remake, set for release next year. During an interview on the Post Mortem podcast, Mancini showed his distaste for the remake and it sounds like he is downright pissed off about it:
“MGM retained the rights to the first movie, so they’re rebooting that,” said Mancini. “They asked [producer] David Kirschner and I if we wanted to be executive producers. We said no thank you, because we have our ongoing thriving business with Chucky. Obviously my feelings were hurt. Ya know, I had just done two movies… forgive me if I sound defensive, [they] were both at 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. Even though they didn’t get theatrical releases, they were well regarded. And I did create the character and nurture the franchise for three fucking decades.”
“So when someone says, ‘Oh yeah, we would love to have your name on the film’… it was hard not to feel like I was being patronized,” he continued. “They just wanted our approval. Which I strenuously denied them. I hesitate to say too much about it because I don’t want to sound like I’m belly-aching too much. But the producers of that movie are the producers of It. How would they feel if there was some legal loophole that allowed David Kirschner and I to swoop in and make our own It movie with our own version of Pennywise and say, ‘Hey guys, we would love to put your names on it.’ I imagine they wouldn’t like it. That’s how I feel. The people who are making that movie, they don’t know how that’s going to affect my livelihood. It’s not just a paycheck. It’s very personal. MGM’s screwing with that… potentially.”