The Child’s Play franchise has evolved in so many brilliant ways over the years, all of which have helped keep horror icon Chucky relevant, scary, and hilarious all at the same time. The television series Chucky is a perfect example of this – especially as its third season takes viewers into the White House. Now Chucky creator Don Mancini, having been involved as a writer on all films in the original franchise, has spoken with us about the new series and what he hopes to achieve with further expansions.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
So my first question is, seeing how crazy Season 3 is, I’m curious if that’s kind of the original direction you had in mind when doing ‘Curse of Chucky’ and kind of relaunching the franchise or if it’s evolved differently from that?
Don Mancini: Well, I think it was, when I did ‘Curse of Chucky,’ I wasn’t really at that point thinking about a TV series. It was shortly after that, it was when I worked on ‘Hannibal’ as a writer/producer and I had such a great experience working for Bryan Fuller on that show, that that’s when I first started thinking about taking the character into television.
And so with the movie ‘Cult of Chucky,’ which I did after working on ‘Hannibal’ and ‘Channel Zero’ with Nick Antosca, I deliberately set up the end of ‘Cult of Chucky’ with that cliffhanger where Nica becomes possessed by Charles Lee Ray and also Charles Lee Ray’s soul had split and he’s also in a couple of different bodies. And so I did that deliberately because I knew that device – that expansion of the Charles Lee Ray character – television was the perfect place to delve into that. Because I think even with the movies, I always feel like I want there to be more going on than just Chucky stalking and killing people.
I mean, you can do, certainly ‘Child’s Play 1,’ ‘Child’s Play 2,’ even, you know, that’s what they were. But after awhile, you know you get used to that, and I always wanted to explore the character in a – maybe even surprising – depth over the years. Like that, I feel like for me as a writer, that’s where the most juicy material is, is like looking at the different facets of this character, and sometimes that leads into comedy and sometimes that leads into more grim stuff. It’s always changing and evolving and it has as much to do with what we’ve just done before and whatever the next thing is. We sort of want to do something very different.
So, on that note of doing something different, what was it like to have Brad Dourif on the set for probably his most screen time as Charles as a human?
Don Mancini: Yeah, It was great. It was fun for everyone to have Chucky in the house. It puts everyone on their toes. But he’s also just such a nice guy. He was just thrilled being able to do this and working with Fiona. I’m not really giving anything away here because you get a glimpse of it in the trailer, where we see Fiona is in makeup as young Charles Lee Ray, so what I wanted to do, I wanted to give them scenes together and I wanted to give Brad scenes with the Chucky doll. You know, because that’s just like, after 36 years or whatever it is, it’s just like, “Okay, I think we can do this now.”
This is also his first time working with the puppeteers and stuff too, I know he always wanted to do more of that.
Don Mancini: Yes. And he loved it. You know, he spent a lot of time with the puppeteers actually.
So you’ve talked about pairing Chucky up with different horror icons in the past. Is there a certain character you would most like to see him cross paths with?
Don Mancini: Freddy. Yeah. They’re both chatty. Like I just feel, and I’ve pitched an idea for this before, you may have come across it before, but I think the idea of doing a movie that is hung on the relationship between Chucky and Freddy – that sounds like a good time to me.
Yeah, I’ve always loved the title, the ‘Child’s Play on Elm Street’ I’ve heard you pitch, it’s so good.
Don Mancini: Yeah and I love the movie ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ and it’s kind of like ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ with Chucky and Freddy.
So are there any other horror franchises that aren’t Chucky-related you would maybe want to work on?
Don Mancini: ‘Orphan.’ I love the ‘Orphan’ franchise. And it’s not just because it’s another sort of like childhood piece. Or you know maybe it is. I think both movies are really cool in different ways. I really, really like passionately loved the first movie, and I even think it’s kind of underrated even though it’s rated pretty highly. I feel like it deserves to be rated even higher. I think David Johnson is a great writer. So that’s one I wouldn’t mind working on. I just think the character of Esther is really fun, I think that actress is fantastic, but I also think that like Chucky and Esther together would be a fun one-off.
In the first two seasons you brought back the Eddie Caputo character from the very first Child’s Play. Is there any chance we could see more of his storyline with Chucky?
Don Mancini: Is that one you’d want to see? Are you interested?
I would love it, yeah.
Don Mancini: That’s interesting. You know, that character is actually the creation of Tom Holland. That was not in my draft of the first movie. So he created that character, but we don’t see much of him at all in the movie of course. In fact, he barely really has any dialogue.
Yeah, that’s why I was so grateful for the show to kind of like make it make sense finally what they were doing there.
Don Mancini: Yeah, I suppose we could delve more. Because I love any excuse to see Fiona as young Charles Lee Ray. I think she’s amazing. We could do more of that and see, you know.
I always thought it would work as kind of, like, a ‘Devil’s Rejects’ kind of thing with Charles, Tiffany, and Eddie Caputo, like all three of them as humans.
Don Mancini: Interesting.
If you could pick any actor to play a character possessed by Chucky, who would you pick since he’s started to do more of that nowadays?
Don Mancini: Martin Short. Yeah, I mean, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara… I love funny people. Both Martin Short and Catherine O’Hara are also great dramatic actors, so I think there would be an endless list. But that’s sort of the answer I give these days, when people ask like if you get another season, you know, what big guest stars, since we’ve sort of made that our tradition. Like the ‘Kids in the Hall’ guys, I think, would be really fun to have on. To have all of those guys playing Chucky.
Do you think we could see a Tiffany or GG spin-off at some point?
Don Mancini: Yeah, I would be totally into doing that I think. I think a Tiffany spin-off is a no-brainer, and it’s something that people would really like to see. So yeah, I’m into it. I know Jennifer is too.
On that note, could we see more of Tiffany’s backstory the way we learned about Chucky in the first season?
Don Mancini: Maybe. We saw a little of that also in the first season, with young Tiffany, and we saw how they met and everything. So I don’t know how much more there is… actually, we had this huge, it wasn’t more than a set piece, it was like a whole storyline that we were going to do in season one. And we wrote it but we ended up having to cut it because we didn’t have enough time, was meeting Tiffany’s mother. Because that’s a character that has been alluded to a lot.
Yeah, to see why she has such a big influence on Tiffany.
Don Mancini: Because I might want to do it at some point so I won’t give away too much. And we also know Chucky killed her, because Chucky alludes to that in ‘Seed of Chucky.’ Anyway, the idea was to see how all of that happens. So maybe that’s something we’ll do. My dream casting for that would be Deborah Harry. She’s a fan, she dressed as Tiffany one Halloween a few years ago.
So now that we’ve seen Chucky at the White House and the ‘Amityville Horror’ house, do you have like a setting in mind that would top those or do you kind of want to bring it down to basics again?
Don Mancini: Well, you know, I already have an idea and a concept for Season 4. Which, again, fingers crossed we get to do it, but it’s not about making it physically bigger every time. It’s really more about, again, following the characters and thinking of a situation where we’re going to be able to explore a new facet of the character and have the relationships between all of these characters take interesting new steps.
So it’s not necessarily about going to space, for example. It seems to me the fandom is split down the middle on that idea. You know, I’ve mentioned it a few times, mostly in jest. I’m interested to gauge, “Is that something people would want to see?” because I do have an idea for it. But it seems like half the people go, “Hell yes, do that!” but there’s the other 50% just like “Oh my god, don’t go there.”
Are there any previous time periods from the ‘Chucky‘ franchise you might want to explore with either a prequel or a midquel, like something set between ‘Seed’ and ‘Curse of Chucky’ maybe?
Don Mancini: The broad answer is yes. Not necessarily specifically in that window, but yes, there are other windows where that’s exactly something, one of the things I’d like to explore.
After nearly four decades of Chucky, it’s clear that the franchise is nowhere near over. The brand is as strong as ever before – and the possibilities for storytelling are just about limitless. Chucky Season 3 is proof of that, and fans can experience it for themselves by watching new episodes on Syfy and USA.