‘Chucky’ Premieres on USA, Syfy Oct. 12
‘Good Guy’ doll turns out to be not so good
Horror series Chucky premieres on USA Network and Syfy Oct. 12. Don Mancini created the show.
“An idyllic American town is thrown into chaos after a vintage ‘Good Guy’ doll turns up at a suburban yard sale,” said USA/Syfy. “Soon, everyone must grapple with a series of horrifying murders that begin to expose the town’s deep hypocrisies and hidden secrets.”
Chucky dates back to the 1988 slasher film Child’s Play. A murderer known as Charles Lee Ray is killed, and transfers his evil soul to the doll.
“Exploring Charles Lee Ray's origins has been something that the fans have wanted to see and have been asking for literally for decades now,” said Mancini at a TCA Press Tour event. “And one of the reasons I was excited about taking the franchise into the medium of television was because having so much storytelling real estate, eight hours of Chucky, that provided such a great opportunity for exploring that stuff, among other stuff. But one of the things I was most excited about doing with the show was exploring Charles Lee Ray's origin.”
Brad Dourif voices Chucky. Zackary Arthur, Devon Sawa and Jennifer Tilly are also in the cast.
Chucky is produced by UCP and executive produced by Don Mancini, David Kirschner, Nick Antosca and Alex Hedlund. Harley Peyton is also executive producer. Mancini is the showrunner.
Mancini said the series pushes the boundaries in terms of edgy content. “One of the things that was important to me was that we'd be able to retain all of the aspects of the franchise that the fans love, one of which is the gore, the other of which, of course, is Chucky's propensity for dropping f-bombs,” he said. “And the networks Syfy and USA, when we pitched the project, assured us that there would be no compromise in these departments.”
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Michael Malone is content director at B+C and Multichannel News. He joined B+C in 2005 and has covered network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television, including writing the "Local News Close-Up" market profiles. He also hosted the podcasts "Busted Pilot" and "Series Business." His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Boston Globe and New York magazine.