Fans of the long-running Chucky franchise have been rewarded in the long run for their patience. Not only does the series, like the killer doll, always come back, but it also manages to tie together plot threads that are decades old in a stratifying way. ComicBook.com caught up with Chucky creator Don Mancini to talk about the new episodes, how he continues to adapt to the schedule of a television show, bringing back fan-favorite characters, and even how the show is subtly distancing itself even further from the Child’s Play remake. You can read our full interview below!
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ComicBook.com: This was the shortest amount of time you’ve had between chapters and the franchise since Child’s Play 2 and Child’s Play 3. Was there anything about that turnaround being so fast that was actually beneficial for you?
Don Mancini: Absolutely, yes. All of us, and I think the writers, the directors, and particularly the puppeteers, we all felt like we were in shape, almost like athletes. At the end of season one, we were really in a groove. And so it was really great to not have to wait a few years to come back, that we could just bound right back. And I think that really helped the show because we were all just feeling, this sounds too self-aggrandizing, at the top of our game, but we were just feeling in shape. And so I like that aspect of coming back so quickly.
CB: Now with the first season, I’m sure there were some growing pains just because it’s a different sort of schedule and the way things are structured with television. What do you think was your biggest takeaway from that?
Maybe something not going the way you thought it would with season one that you used to your advantage in season two?
DM: Oh gosh, that’s a hard one. I mean, the first thing that occurs to me is just the pandemic. And so season one, we were not at the beginning of the pandemic, but it was a relatively early production to shoot under those conditions. And so that was quite a trial by fire for me as a first-time showrunner to be doing that under those conditions. And so I think I was freaking out a little bit about that in the run up to season one. I was just like, “Oh my God, how are we possibly going to do this?” But it’s interesting, it was ultimately a bonding experience for the cast and crew because we literally have to have each other’s backs. We’re wearing masks and shields and testing every day or every other day, or whatever it is. And it’s also that we can keep each other safe so that we can continue to work.
And I think we all realize how lucky we were to be able to be doing that because so many people in various businesses have been curtailed because of that. And so I think that once we got in the groove of that, we’ve got, “Okay, we can do it. We can do it as long as we work together.” And so I think that coming into season two, and we were shooting under similar circumstances. I mean, Toronto wasn’t shut down in the way it was when we first got there for season one, but we were still … The pandemic still was out there. And in fact, our production was hit much more severely than it was in season one, I think partly just because restrictions were relaxed outside in the world.
CB: Sure
DM: I mean, people weren’t wearing masks out in the world, but we were, and we were observing all such protocols while we were shooting. So I think that aspect of season two, it was a direct result of our experience in what we learned in season one.
CB: “In some of the marketing materials, a few people have noticed that now the show has your name, it’s Don Mancini’s Chucky. How important was it for you to get to put that on the marketing?
DM: Well, it’s incredibly flattering and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love that. Last year for season one, it said above the title, “From Don Mancini,” or something like that. And I didn’t have that in my contract or anything. Normally, I think those things are contractually mandated.
CB: Right.
DM: And it was not in this case, it was just something that the studio did. And I suspect it was because they wanted to underline the fact that this was OG Chucky as opposed to the remake that came out in 2019 or whatever it was. So I think that that was probably their intent there. But from my perspective, it was like, “Oh my God, that’s so cool.” Then I felt like, “Well, there’s no going back now. I can’t not have my … I’m like, “I’ve gotten too used to it.” It’s like once you fly business class, it’s like, “Oh, I can’t possibly go back.” So it’s really a gift from the studio, honestly, and from the networks that they do that. And I’m incredibly grateful and my ego is very gratified by it.
CB: I want to jump into the fact that you’re bringing back Glen and Glenda as characters in the show, and it’s been quite a while since we last saw them.
So, how long have you known what you wanted to do with them, and was the gap between their appearances part of that? Or was that just sort of necessity?
DM: It was really more necessity because initially Seed of Chucky, when it came out in 2004, didn’t do well. And so for a while in the franchise, when we did Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky, even though I wanted to allude to those characters, I was forbidden from doing so by the people we were working with at the time.
cont’d
By the way. I’m not trying to villainize them at all. They were awesome, very supportive on the making of those movies. But I think their thinking was, “Okay, people didn’t like Seed of Chucky, so we want to stay away from anything that reminds them of that.” I mean, that’s not the way I felt. I think that was their reasoning. And if I can be objective about it, it’s like, “Okay, I can see that.” But then when we crossed over into television, so we’re working with a completely new group of people at UCP, whom I had worked with when I worked on Channel Zero for Nick Antosca, who was the showrunner on that show. So I got to know some of the UCP and Syfy executives, and Nick is a fellow executive producer on the show. So they were completely open to it.
I mean, I think part of it is that I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and so all of these executives now, they grew up with Chucky. They’re all, it’s not all, but many of them are young enough to be my kids. And the upside of that is that they grew up with it and they’re genuine fans, not just of Chucky, but of the horror genre in general. And I think also just generally in our business, the horror genre is much more respected now than it was when I first started out. It was more like the bastard stepchild and people would be vaguely, sometimes they would be vaguely embarrassed by it or sometimes … Not embarrassed by it. It’s just not their thing.
cont’d
DM: The executives are again, very supportive and smart and helpful, but it’s not necessarily something that they would watch themselves. That is very different now because all our executives that we work with at the studio and the network, they’re huge horror fans and fans of the Chucky franchise. So to answer your question, they were very open to bringing these characters back. And of course, fortunately the world has evolved to a point that it is more welcoming to this kind of material. So I knew that on top of that, having eight hours of story at our disposal to tell was the perfect opportunity to start going down these different avenues and exploring these characters from the franchise’s past that people have been wondering about over the years. And so here we are doing it now.
New episodes of Chucky air Wednesday at 9 PM ET on SYFY and USA Network.
