Chucky, has been shocking and charming audiences for decades ever since he sliced and diced his way into the pop culture zeitgeist when “Child’s Play” premiered on the 9th of November, 1988. Directed and co-written by Tom Holland, produced by David Kirschner, and based on an original story by Don Mancini, the film soon became an international sensation, spawning six sequels, all written by Mancini who helmed three of them: Seed of Chucky in 2004, Curse of Chucky in 2013 and Cult of Chucky in 2017.
The last time audiences got to share some quality time with their best friend till the end was in 2019 with Lars Klevberg’s theatrical “reboot” penned by Tyler Burton Smith. Mancini decided not to get involved with that version as, according to Klevberg, the franchise’s creator “stood his ground that he didn’t want anything to do with this remake. His version is developed with Universal, but MGM owns the rights for the original Child’s Play movie.”
Regardless of this Universal/MGM context, reports had already been doing the rounds long before, stating that Mancini was prepping a television show that would serve as some sort of direct continuation of the original film franchise. This news was quickly followed with SYFY placing a straight-to-series order for said series, with Mancini also serving as showrunner and set to direct the first episode.
This all-new adaptation of the franchise goes by the name of CHUCKY and takes viewers to the idyllic town of Hackensack where a vintage (or is that retro?) Good Guys doll is put up for sale at a suburban yard sale. As you can imagine, as soon as the freckle-faced doll finds himself a new owner, everything turns pear-shaped as a series of horrifying murders start to expose the town’s hypocrisies and secrets.
The first episode went down a treat when it premiered on Syfy and USA Network on the 12th of October and the UK won’t have to wait too much longer as the first two episodes of season one will premiere on Sky Max this 3 December. To celebrate the imminent UK release, and further to a recently released teaser which revealed the imminent arrival of a number of enemies – and allies – from Chucky’s past, Alex Vincent (Andy Barclay in Child’s Play, Child’s Play 2, Curse of Chucky & Cult of Chucky) and Christine Elise (Kyle in Child’s Play 2 & Cult of Chucky) hopped on Zoom to reveal how Mancini will be bringing them back into the franchise’s fold, and how the animatronics just keep on blowing their minds with each new Chucky iteration.