Child’s Play creator Don Mancini revealed his inspiration to make the Chucky TV show came from Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series starring Mads Mikkelsen. Talking to Bloody Disgusting about the journey of the killer doll from theaters to the TV, Mancini underlined how Hannibal showed him that a big movie franchise could be reinvented in television, which ultimately led him to create the Chucky series.
While Mancini is mainly known for creating the Child’s Play franchise, the writer has also worked for other horror shows, such as Tales from the Crypt, Channel Zero, and Hannibal. According to Mancini, during the time he spent with the crew of Hannibal, he had the idea to transport Chucky from movies to television. Developed by Fuller for NBC, Hannibal was inspired by Thomas Harris' novels’ characters, specifically the cannibal doctor Hannibal Lecter (Mikkelsen) and FBI special investigator Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). Although these characters were already widely known due to the success of the original novels the film franchise starring Anthony Hopkins as the killer, the series followed its own path to critical and public acclaim.
Hannibal successfully reimagined characters beloved by the public, which led Mancini to wonder about the potential of television in building narratives. As Mancini explains it, Hannibal:
“Was an established movie franchise and literary franchise that now had made its way into television, but with a very specific vision that Bryan Fuller had. When I worked on that show, one of the things that was so exciting about it was that it felt in a way like fanfiction done by experts. (...) If you’re a fan of something like that, as I was, you do spend some time fantasizing about that. What would’ve been Hannibal like in practice? What would it have been like to have been a patient of Hannibal Lecter? I think that that was a fundamental appeal of that show. The making of the show was Bryan bringing his own amazing talent and vision, but also the talents and genuine enthusiasm and fan boyishness and fan girlishness of seven or eight like-minded Hannibal fanatics”
At this point, Mancini started to wonder how he could conjure the same energy into his own Child’s Play franchise. In Mancini’s words:
“I realized if I did that with my own franchise, we could do something really amazing. Because Bryan had done it with Hannibal. That was the initial inspiration for bringing Chucky to TV, when I worked on Hannibal.”
Chucky serves as a sequel to the seventh film in the Child’s Play franchise Cult of Chucky, released in 2017. The series brought back many classic characters of the franchise, such as Alex Vincent’s Andy, the original child tormented by the killer puppet in the first movie, and Christine Elise McCarthy reprising her role as Andy’s foster-sister.
In addition, Brad Dourif came back to voice Chucky, while his daughter, Fiona Dourif, was back as Nica Pierce. Jennifer Tilly also returned as Tiffany Valentine, Chucky’s Bride. The series also stars Zackary Arthur, Teo Briones, Alyvia Alyn Lind, Björgvin Arnarson, Devon Sawa, Lexa Doig, Barbara Alyn Woods.
The Chucky series has recently reached the end of its blood-soaked first season at SYFY, with the killer doll confirmed to return for Season 2. Chucky’s entire first season is available right now at Peacock.