Play-time is almost upon as the Chucky franchise plans a return to theaters after more than two decades.
Appearing at Pennsylvania’s Steel City Comic Con April 12, series steward Don Mancini revealed that he’s currently writing a new theatrical entry in the iconic horror IP, which began with the release of Child’s Play in November 1988.
Child’s Play co-creator Don Mancini writing new Chucky movie set for theaters
Bloody Disgusting dug up a few more details about the project, which is reportedly intended as a semi-reboot connected to past films and the TV show. In addition, Mancini hopes to bring back the overt horror tone of the first two movies.
Since its last big screen outing, 2004’s Seed of Chucky, the iteration of the brand under Mancini’s purview has seen the release of a two direct-to-video movies—Curse of Chucky (2013) and Cult of Chucky (2017)—as well as the aforementioned television show that ran for three seasons on SYFY and USA Network.
While the original film was remade in 2019, with Mark Hamill voicing Chucky, it did not feature any creative input from Mancini, who co-created the OG installment with John Lafia and director Tom Holland. Since 1988, however, he has been the sole creative voice behind the Child’s Play/Chucky banner—remake excluded—and ultimately made his directorial debut with Seed of Chucky.
“One of the things that we’ve done, is we plug Chucky in as a different metaphor depending on the era that we’re in,” Mancini told SYFY Wire in 2020. “When I first wrote the script and the movie came out in the ‘80s, Chucky was specifically meant to be a kind of symbol or avatar for consumerism run amok. That was something I was really interested in when I wrote the script [because] my dad worked in marketing and advertising when I was growing up. I was very interested in writing something about how marketing affects children.”
He continued: “That was what Chucky was about initially, but then, over the years, he’s come to reflect different things depending on the times. Chucky now has become a symbol for LGBTQ rights. Over the years, we’ve embraced a kind of specific gay identity for the franchise. I think it’s just being attentive to what is going on in the culture, what is going in the zeitgeist at any given time, and then using Chucky to get at those issues in an interesting, fun way.”