With last year’s Cult of Chucky having largely split opinion amongst Child’s Play fans, now comes word that the franchise is about to get rebooted.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, MGM is moving forward with a fresh start for this iconic horror franchise. Not only that, but Polaroid’s Lars Klevberg has been brought in to direct the redo. This is in addition to franchise creator Don Mancini’s ongoing plans to create a Child’s Play TV series that is canon to what we’ve seen in the movies to date.

Reportedly, the Child’s Play remake is to start shooting this September. As well as Klevberg directing, Kung Fury 2’s Tyler Burton Smith is on writing duties. IT’s David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith are producing.

For this redo, rather than focussing on just a solitary child – as in Andy Barclay in that original movie (and several of the sequels) – the action will actually centre on a group of children and a “technologically-advanced” doll.

Previously, the film franchise was already loosely rebooted with 2013’s Curse of Chucky. That film was pegged as a reboot for the series, before it was cleverly revealed to dovetail nicely with the existing franchise; Curse serving as both a reboot and a continuation.

Due to a loophole with the rights for the Child’s Play franchise, MGM is able to develop this new rebooted film despite Universal owning the home entertainment rights to the franchise. This allows MGM to create this restart for the franchise at the same time that Don Mancini is able to still develop that aforementioned TV series.

Right now, it also appears that Brad Dourif – the longtime voice of the murderous Chucky – won’t be involved in the movie restart; with him more likely to return for Mancini’s TV effort.

As ever, expect more on all things Child’s Play as we get it.