Not to be confused with the Orion remake headed to theaters, Don Mancini’s Child’s Play TV show is set to premiere on Syfy sometime in 2020. Child’s Play is one of those franchises that, at least on paper, should never have lasted as long as it has. As has been made fun of in countless jokes over the years, a killer doll should really be a villain that’s quite easy to defeat, possibly laughably so. Films are often more than they appear on paper though, and the original Child’s Play film is generally regarded as a horror classic of the 1980s.
Chucky, the aforementioned murderous doll, has also become a true icon of the horror genre, and been merchandised in just about every possible way. Since his 1988 debut, Chucky has stalked and slashed through six sequels, 1990’s Child’s Play 2, 1991’s Child’s Play 3, 1998’s Bride of Chucky, 2004’s Seed of Chucky, 2013’s Curse of Chucky, and 2017’s Cult of Chucky. Now though, Chucky is facing some new horizons as a character, as is the overall Child’s Play franchise.
Due to a quirk in the rights, Orion Pictures (a subsidiary of MGM, distributors of the original Child’s Play movie) have been able to create a remake of the first film, set to open in theaters next month. This is despite the fact that Cult of Chucky drew mostly positive reviews from fans, and franchise creator Mancini had expressed no desire to stop making further entries with Universal, distributor of all the sequels. Thankfully, Mancini’s previously announced Child’s Play TV series is still good to go, regardless of the remake. In a recent Twitter reply (via Bloody Disgusting), Mancini confirmed that the show will premiere on Syfy sometime in 2020.
Unlike the Orion remake, which features an entirely new cast, and even completely changes Chucky’s formerly voodoo-based origin story, Mancini’s Child’s Play TV show – which doesn’t yet have an official title – is expected to bring back the franchise’s surviving main cast. This includes Brad Dourif as the voice of Chucky, who’s being voiced by Mark Hamill in the remake. Plot-wise, Mancini’s show is intended to function as a sequel to Cult of Chucky, which ended on quite the surprising note.
One hopes that when Mancini’s Child’s Play show arrives on Syfy, it doesn’t get overlooked out of confusion with the movie remake, which it remains to be seen if anyone will actually like or not. Hardcore horror fans are fully aware of Mancini’s opposition to the remake, but casual viewers are unlikely to be, and might well get perplexed by the idea of two concurrent Chucky continuities.
