Chucky TV series: new trailer, premiere date, and Child’s Play 2 influence

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

We've been hearing that the Chucky TV series, a continuation of the Child's Play franchise that has been going strong since 1988, would premiere on USA Network and Syfy this fall, and now we know exactly when to watch for it. The series premiere will begin airing at 10pm on Tuesday, October 12th. Along with that information, Entertainment Weekly got their hands on a teaser trailer for the show, which is embedded above, and a poster, which you can see below.

Don Mancini, who has written every film in the Child's Play franchise (except for the remake) and directed a few of them, developed Chucky with producer David Kirschner. They are executive producing the show with Harley Peyton, Alex Hedlund, and Nick Antosca. Mancini also directed the first episode. The show's synopsis: 

After a vintage Chucky doll turns up at a suburban yard sale, an idyllic American town is thrown into chaos as a series of horrifying murders begin to expose the town’s hypocrisies and secrets. Meanwhile, the arrival of enemies and allies from Chucky’s past threatens to expose the truth behind the killings, as well as the demon doll’s untold origins as a seemingly ordinary child who somehow became this notorious monster.

The cast includes Zackary Arthur, Devon Sawa, Fiona Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, Bjorgvin Arnarson, Jacob Breedon, Alex Vincent, Lexa Doig, Teo Briones, Christine Elise, Alyvia Alyn Lind, and Lind's real-life mother Barbara Alyn Woods. Brad Dourif is once again providing the voice of Chucky.

Mancini told Entertainment Weekly that the show's 

main character is a 14-year-old gay boy who's bullied and sort of lost after the recent death of his mother. He's a young artist [making] sculptures with doll parts. He finds Chucky at a yard sale and buys him, but it turns out that he gets much more than he bargained for."

He went on to say that he 

deliberately ended Cult of Chucky on a series of cliffhangers, major cliffhangers, because I knew a TV series would be the ideal place to accommodate delving into the ramifications. So we begin the series introducing our new story, our new milieu, and then we start to bring the veteran characters into the story, and it all comes together for a big showdown."

We get a glimpse of Chucky in action in the new trailer, and Mancini let Entertainment Weekly know that the way Chucky is presented in this series was directly based on his appearance in Child's Play 2.

Over the years, I've heard that the consensus fan favorite among all the movies is Child's Play 2. I think one of the reasons for that is how Chucky looked in that movie and how the late director John Lafia, who passed away last year, shot Chucky. Our goal with the series was to bring Chucky's look precisely back to that. Tony Gardner and Peter Chevako (special effects artists responsible for creating the show's puppets) have done a great job. I think fans are really going to love that."

If the first season of Chucky does well during its eight episode run on USA and Syfy, Mancini is looking forward to telling more Chucky stories, possibly in both film and television.

We have plans to (make more movies), whether in lieu of additional seasons of the series, or in tandem with (them), potentially. We're creating a broader Chucky universe with the TV series that now could span over different media."

I'm always on board to watch more Chucky, so I will be watching this series for sure.