Child's Play is a 1988 American horror film directed and co-written by Tom Holland, and produced by David Kirschner from a story by Don Mancini.[4] It is the first film in the Child's Play series and the first installment to feature the character Chucky. It stars Brad Dourif, Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent and Dinah Manoff. Hicks plays a widowed mother who gives a doll to her son played by Vincent, unaware that the doll is possessed by the soul of a serial killer played by Dourif. Child's Play was released in the United States on November 9, 1988, by MGM/UA Communications Co. It grossed more than $44 million against a production budget of $9 million.[5][6][7] Along with the film gaining a cult following,[8] the box office success spawned a media franchise that includes a series of six sequels, merchandise, comic books, and a reboot film of the same name released in the summer of 2019. Child's Play was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,[9] although the rights to the series were sold to Universal Pictures in 1990,[10] right before production on Child's Play 2 started. MGM retained the rights to the first film and, as such, distributed the 2019 reboot.