Chucky Creator Don Mancini Teases What's in Store for Our Favorite Killer Doll

After leaving us dangling off a White House cliff just before Halloween, Chucky returns tomorrow to finish out its third season. More mayhem awaits in Washington, D.C. for Chucky and the teens who’re desperate to take him down, not to mention Tiffany, stuck on Texas’ Death Row. Plus, Chucky’s still facing a new kind of horror: aging! Rapidly!

io9 got a chance to talk to Chucky creator Don Mancini to learn more about what’s to come for the killer doll and his crew of foes, friends, frenemies, and (of course) gruesomely mutilated victims.

Cheryl Eddy, io9: We’ve spent three seasons with Jake, Devon, and Lexy and we can’t help but root for them. But Chucky is the “hero” of the franchise and we’ll always want him to succeed. How do you approach writing those characters so that there’s appeal on both sides?

Don Mancini:Chucky is the villain. Or maybe the anti-hero. But I love the way you express that because that’s kind of the way I feel about it—I want them all to be happy somehow. But, I mean, I do like putting new obstacles in the path of those kids. [The other Chucky writers and I] do enjoy identifying with Chucky in [coming up with ways to] interrupt their path to happiness. I think that’s part of the appeal of the show, and why YA as a genre—which is something that we’ve done for the first time, really, with the TV show—is a good fit for Chucky.

With Chucky, going all the way back to the movies, we found that the style was always slightly heightened—Chucky himself seems to operate best in a slightly heightened world, I think because he himself as a puppet is stylized. He’s like a stylized representation of a human being. But there’s that uncanny valley that makes it feel weird. So that slight bit of stylization, we try to imbue that in his whole world without going full Tim Burton, is what I always say. I mean, I love Tim Burton, but we always want to stay a little more naturalistic than a Tim Burton movie. And I think that’s the kids. The teenage characters do that so well because teenage emotions naturally are heightened and stylized. That’s why YA is a good fit for Chucky. But yes, I try to service all the characters.

io9: There’s a moment in the new episodes where Chucky trash-talks other “killer doll” characters in pop culture, kind of an extension of his social media persona. Did you always have a scene like that in mind?

Mancini: Yes—especially because we’re at the same studio, Universal. In season three [the story is about] Chucky struggling with his own waning power, his own waning strength as a killer. And in pop culture, I just think that that’s an amusingly identifiable sort of existential dilemma to give a slasher icon. I’ve been doing this for decades now, so when the Child’s Play remake came out a few years ago, that was threatening to me, especially because I was developing the TV show at that time. You never knew what could have happened if that movie had been some huge success. It could have resulted in our TV show not happening. It was just this big question mark. So that so that was existentially frightening for me—I think that’s a fairly universal thing to feel when you get when you’ve been doing something for a certain number of years. I just thought it would be fun to show Chucky dealing with a similar emotion. And what better way to do that [than seeing] him clicking through channels and seeing M3GAN and the Boy and Annabelle—all the different ones, and sort of feeling threatened by them? I just thought that was funny and relatable.

io9: You mentioned the 2019 Child’s Play reboot movie—which is better left in the past—but there have been rumors lately that you might have a new Chucky movie in the works. What can you tell us about that?

Mancini:Very little. Really, I can’t really say anything more. It’s like very early days of of talks, but it’s an exciting, exciting enterprise. I hope we’re going to get another season of the show as well. I mean, I think both can occur and they can both coexist in there. My plan is to have it all make sense in terms of the continuity and the overall mythology of the world we’re building; we won’t contradict anything.

io9: So if you had your druthers, would it be a theatrical release that picks up the story of the TV show?

Mancini:Or it could be, if we get a season four, we pick up those story threads. And wherever we end up leaving off season four, that the movie could take over. I can’t say too much because there’s actually an even trickier way that it works that makes it kind of cool. I know you have to take that with a huge grain of salt coming from me. It’s like I can’t say anything, but it’s really amazing.

io9: I will say the end of season three, without spoiling anything, really opens up the possibility for a season four. Hopefully we’ll get that announcement sooner than later.

Mancini: I hope so. I’m glad it worked. It seemed to work for people. They really liked that twist.

io9: It was very cool to see the legendary John Waters return to the franchise in a new role. What’s it like working with John Waters as an actor and how much input did he have into his Chucky character?

Mancini: Having worked with him on Seed of Chucky and just knowing him and being a fan of his work, not just the movies, but also his work as a writer, as an author, and as a performer, he’s really impressive. But I know him, so I think, I and my fellow writers were able to tailor that character specifically for him. We wrote it with him in mind because—who better is sort of spiritually to have caused all of the chaos that erupted from the adorable Good Guy doll?

io9: In this season we finally see Brad Dourif beyond just being Chucky’s voice. Was that a cool thing for everyone to experience?

Mancini: It was fantastic. He was on set just for a couple of days on Curse of Chucky, which we shot in 2012 or 2013. So it’s been 10 years. Every year, whether it’s a new movie or a new season of the TV show, I always want to give Brad new stuff to do to keep him challenged and interested. He’s one of the greatest actors of his generation, and we have him at our disposal. I’d be remiss if I were not employing that to the fullest. So after having giving him all these fun variations on the Chucky persona last year, where he did Good Chucky and Colonel Chucky and whatnot, I just thought, like, “Let’s have you in the flesh.” I knew I wanted him to have scenes with the doll because I knew—even before I figured out how to do it—I just knew that that would be a cool thing to see. And scenes with Fiona [Dourif, Brad Dourif’s daughter and Chucky co-star] as young Charles Lee Ray. Because that I just think Fiona is so great as young Charles Lee Ray. It was fun to put them together and give them stuff to do, and I think it was kind of a fun family event in their lives—something that they’ll always cherish. It was great having him around, because everyone’s on their toes: “Chucky’s in the house!” Everyone wants to make a good impression, but he’s not intimidating at all. He’s just so much fun. And it was great having him around for a month. He hung out a lot with the puppeteers, which was really interesting.

Chucky season three, part two premieres tomorrow, April 10, at 10 p.m. on USA and Syfy, with new episodes weekly until May 1. You can also stream episodes the next day on Peacock.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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