Posted in: Preview, SYFY, TV, USA Network | Tagged: bryan fuller, child's play, chucky, don mancini, hannibal, syfy, usa

Chucky Fans Have "Hannibal" to Thank for USA/SYFY Child's Play Series

With the first teaser having now been unleashed upon the world with the knowledge that the demonic doll will begin stalking USA Network and SYFY screens starting October 12, "Child's Play" franchise mastermind Don Mancini is opening up about how Bryan Fuller's Hannibal helped bring the Chucky series to life. Mancini served as a writer/producer on the Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen-starring series (one that's more popular now than ever before, with fans still fighting for a fourth season), and now he explains to EW how that experience led him to see the light on how Chucky could be brought to the small screen in a way he deserves. Here's a look at the highlights;

How "Hannibal" Writers Gave Mancini Renewed "Chucky" Series Hopes: "Of course, like everybody else, I was blown away. Anyway, I ended up in the 'Hannibal' writers' room. I really loved working on that show, and I loved working for Bryan Fuller and learned a lot from him. I saw that one of the things that made that show so interesting and exciting was that it was kind of fan fiction written by experts. It was a sort of fanciful imagining initially. What was Hannibal like when he was a practicing psychiatrist consulting with the FBI before anyone knew he was the big bad? That's when I started imagining doing the same thing with 'Chucky', having eight hours of narrative to play with and doing it with a bunch of like-minded horror geeks and legit Chucky fanatics. I've been around for quite a while now, and I meet a lot of younger people who love the franchise and who grew up on it, and so I felt, wow, if I can cultivate the excitement that they have for 'Chucky', in the same way I felt Bryan Fuller was able to cultivate my and the other writers' excitement for Hannibal, we could have something really special."

How "Chucky" Needed to Adjust from Film to Television: "I realized that taking it into the medium of television would change the lens through which we view the characters in the franchise in a potentially really fruitful way. Just having eight hours of story to deal with necessarily puts you in a position where you're dealing much more with characters and relationships than you can in any single 90-minute movie. All of that just seemed really mouth-watering to me and I'm delighted and slightly shocked that it all worked out."

How "Hannibal" Helped "Chucky" Get Its' F-Bombs & More: "'Hannibal' really pushed the limits of what you can show on a network show. SYFY and USA have a strong appetite, as strong as ours, for keeping the TV series tonally in check with what the fans want to see. Before we even sold the show, we had to confirm with the network that Chucky could drop his F-bombs. Chucky gets 10 F-bombs per episode, so that's more than enough. It made me want to do an episode where Chucky, without ever having said anything off-color, at the end of the episode, he just turns to the camera and goes, 'F***, f***, f***, f***, f***, f***, f***, f***, f***.' It's the inverse of the way Spielberg used Chucky in his cameo in 'Ready Player One'. Since that was a PG-13, they had one mandated F-bomb at their disposal and Spielberg chose to deploy it with Chucky's appearance, which I loved."

Just in case you need a quick recap, Chucky focuses on the vintage doll (with the soul of notorious serial killer Charles Lee Ray riding shotgun) as it turns up at a suburban yard sale. Soon, an idyllic American town is thrown into chaos as a series of horrifying murders begin to expose the town's hypocrisies and secrets. Meanwhile, the arrival of enemies (and allies) from Chucky's past threatens to expose the truth behind the killings, as well as the demon doll's untold origins as a seemingly ordinary child who somehow became this notorious monster.

SYFY's Chucky stars Zackary Arthur (Transparent), Teo Briones (Ratched), Alyvia Alyn Lind (Daybreak), Björgvin Arnarson (The Seventh Day), Devon Sawa (Final Destination), Jennifer Tilly (reprising her role as Tiffany Valentine from the films), Fiona Dourif (reprising her role as Nica from the films), Alex Vincent (the original Andy Barclay), and Christine Elise McCarthy (Kyle- Child's Play 2, Cult of Chucky)- with Brad Dourif returning to voice the demonic doll.

An easy target for Chucky, Athrur's Jake Webber is a loner trying to find his place in the world after his mom's death while never connecting with his dad or his peers. Briones' Junior Webber is Bree and Logan's son and Jake's cousin, an all-American, over-achieving, jock – the opposite of his loner cousin Jake. Lind's Lexy Taylor is the self-appointed princess of her school and Jake's primary bully- who also dates his cousin Junior. Arnarson's Devon Lopez is the boy-next-door and true-crime junkie who is hellbent on making sense of Hackensack's mysterious tragedies- both past and present. No details were released on Sawa's character at this time (though the "always reliable" Wikipedia lists the character as "Logan Webber"). Chucky is being developed by Mancini, producer David Kirschner, and Antosca via his Eat the Cat banner. Harley Peyton (Twin Peaks, Channel Zero) serves as an executive producer. Mancini will work triple time on the series, beyond his executive producing responsibilities: writing the adaptation, serving as showrunner, and directing the first episode.

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