Editorial Staff
Before Universal decides it needs a change of batteries and replaces the original brass with some cockeyed gun-for-hire and a writer’s room full of pre-pubescent suits who’ve never heard of Tom Holland, let alone know what an animatronic is, Chucky creator Don Mancini is hurrying plans to bring a new instalment of the long-running “Child’s Play” to screens. But as opposed to what’s come before – including recent sequel, “Cult of Chucky” with Mancini also wrote and directed – Chucky’s next splatter spree will be on TV.
Mancini tells Bloody Disgusting that the events of “Cult” will be followed-up in a TV series (as opposed to another direct-to-disc movie) and, like the original 1988 film, it’ll feature genuine, dark scares and the word’s “Child’s Play” in its title.
Mancini, who directed the fifth, sixth and seventh instalments in the movie series, tells the site that the series is something he and franchise producer David Kirschner are spearheading.
The creator of the title character says the TV series was “deliberately set up at end of the last movie,” and promises a series with a tone “dark and disturbing.”
In addition, Mancini says they plan to go back to the beginning and use the title of the original Tom Holland directed film.
“We plan to use Child’s Play in the title,” he explained. “We want to definitely signal that we are going dark, darker than ever before. It’s going to be very creepy.”
Mancini and Kirschner seem adamant that the series won’t be a reboot but will continue on from the events of the recent movies – suggesting we might see fan-favourite characters Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly), Andy (Alex Vincent) and Nica Pierce (Fiona Douri) on the show.
Brad Dourif, who has provided the voice of the demonic doll since the original film, will be back to lend his lungs to “Child’s Play : The TV Show”.
No word on where or when the 8-episode first season of the series will land.
Meanwhile, Mancini is still toying with future movie ideas for the series, admitting in an interview earlier this week that he’d like to do a period piece with Chucky.
“I would love to do a World War II-era Chucky movie; I think would be awesome,” Mancini shared with Portal 13. “You know how in Raiders of the Lost Ark they say, ‘Hitler’s obsessed with the occult’? That’s the window in. It would be legitimately interesting to see Chucky in that milieu with the iconography and the archetypes of the World War II movie, he could be great.”
It don’t matter the medium, but ain’t it time to bring Catherine Hicks back to the franchise? Andy’s mom gotta still be out there, right!?
