Much like the killer doll himself, the Chucky franchise keeps on going and reinventing itself. However, unlike many similar horror franchises, the Chucky series has always been helmed by its writer/creator – Don Mancini. And this remains true with SYFY and USA’s upcoming Chucky TV series. To promote the series, Mancini spoke with Entertainment Weekly, teasing some of what fans could expect from the Chucky show.
The Premise of Chucky
In the interview, Mancini described his desire to return the franchise to its roots – a killer doll terrorizing a group of youngsters. This time, however, instead of Chucky going after kids, he’ll be going after teenagers (including Zackary Arthur, Lexa Doig, and Devon Sawa).
“The main character is a 14-year-old gay boy who’s bullied and sort of lost after the recent death of his mother. He’s a young artist [making] sculptures with doll parts. He finds Chucky at a yard sale and buys him, but it turns out that he gets much more than he bargained for. One of the things I wanted to do was bring [the franchise] back to its Child’s Play roots and have the protagonists [be] kids. But since, with the first couple of movies, we’d already delved into having little kids I wanted to explore something different, so this time we’re exploring young teenagers.”
Continuing the Story From the Films
With many longtime Chucky actors set to appear in the series (including Alex Vincent, Jennifer Tilly, Christine Elise, Brad Dourif, and Fiona Dourif), it seemed likely the show would be a continuation of the franchise, rather than a reboot. A suspicion which Mancini confirmed, explaining:
“One of the things that we pride ourselves on, and I think makes our franchise singular, is that we have spun a relatively consistent and coherent narrative over the course of 33 years and seven films and now eight episodes of television. I think that’s one of the things that our fans like about the Chucky franchise. I deliberately ended Cult of Chucky on a series of cliffhangers, major cliffhangers, because I knew a TV series would be the ideal place to accommodate delving into the ramifications. So we begin the series introducing our new story, our new milieu, and then we start to bring the veteran characters into the story, and it all comes together for a big showdown.”
Chucky’s Look
Fans of the Chucky franchise know that Chucky’s look tends to change from movie to movie. This trend continues in the Chucky TV show. This time, however, Mancini says they’ve decided to base the design on the fan-favorite one in Child’s Play 2:
“Over the years, I’ve heard that the consensus fan favorite among all the movies is Child’s Play 2. I think one of the reasons for that is how Chucky looked in that movie and how the late director John Lafia, who passed away last year, shot Chucky. Our goal with the series was to bring Chucky’s look precisely back to that. Tony Gardner and Peter Chevako (special effects artists responsible for creating the show’s puppets) have done a great job. I think fans are really going to love that.”
The Future of the Franchise
While the Chucky TV series has currently only been given a single season, Mancini remains hopeful about the franchise’s future, saying:
“We have plans to do that, whether in lieu of additional seasons of the series, or in tandem with [them], potentially. We’re creating a broader Chucky universe with the TV series that now could span over different media.”
Chucky premieres on October 12th at 10 pm on SYFY and USA.
Are you excited for the Chucky TV series? What are you hoping to see?
Source: EW.
Part-time writer, part-time theatre nerd, full-time dork.
