If you love the Child’s Play or Chucky series, then you’re going to want to see this. Chucky from original creator Don Mancini comes to SYFY this October 12th, 2021. Entertainment Weekly had the first-look image and details about the upcoming show. The show follows after the film series (not the reboot) and Chucky winds up in a small-town yard sale. Characters and enemies from the past for Chucky join the fray and the mystery of murders in the town unwinds.
It all sounds very… mature… for a series like this. That’s a frightening and intriguing thought though. Now we know what tone Chucky is going for, but this sounds like a very real story, that’s fleshed out, and not just here for a pump and dump cash-grab. Zackary Arthur stars in the show alongside Lexa Doig, Devon Sawa, Teo Briones, Alyvia Alyn Lind, Björgvin Arnarson, Jennifer Tilly, Fiona Dourif, Alex Vincent, Christine Elise, and Brad Dourif as Chucky.
Don Mancini Speaks On All Things Chucky
The main character is a 14-year-old gay boy who’s bullied and sort of lost after the recent death of his mother,” says Mancini. “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.
Don Mancini to EW
This very much feels like a fleshed out idea that’s going to bring the series forward. Mancini had this to say about the cliffhanger ending to Cult of Chucky:
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.
Don Mancini to EW
Fans Of Child’s Play 2 Read On
Child’s Play 2 is one of the favorites among fans of the series. The John Lafia (RIP) directed sequel moved the series forward in an interesting way and gave us more about Chucky. Don Mancini saw this, and based the version of Chucky in the show on 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.
Don Mancini to EW
Finally, there are plans to make a second season if the show is successful. Mancini also wants to make more Chucky films. So for fans of the series, we’re in a bit of a renaissance for Chucky and Co.
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.
So far, so good for Chucky on SYFY/USA Network. We’ll have to see just what the show looks and feels like when it premieres on October 12th, 2021. But it’s looking very promising.
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Source: Entertainment Weekly