The Child’s Play franchise is one of the craziest, most successful multiverses in horror history. Starting out humble with the original Child’s Play back in 1988, Brad Dourif’s killer doll would go on to star in two more Child’s Play sequels, a whole host of sequel/spin-off films within the Chucky brand, a god-awful remake (voiced by Mark Hamill, the only saving grace) and a universally beloved television series currently airing its second season.
While the Child’s Play trilogy was well-received and the various standalone sequels starting with Bride of Chucky (1998) were a huge hit with the crowd, not all of Don Mancini’s follow-ups are so excessively praised. After Bride of Chucky, Mancini birthed an abomination with Seed of Chucky (2004), the coming-of-age tale focused primarily on Glen/Glenda, the unholy offspring of Chucky and the Bonnie to his Clyde, Tiffany. Even Jennifer Tilly and Brad Dourif couldn’t save this one. Judging by the absurd concept alone, Seed of Chucky bombed at the box office, so Mancini was forbidden from ever referencing the sequel that besmirched the good name of the Child’s Play franchise. Thankfully, the sixth installment, Curse of Chucky (2013), managed to extinguish the dumpster fire caused by Seed, even if it barely managed to keep Mancini’s head above water.
Speaking to ComicBook.com, Mancini reveals the details of how his co-distributors for Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky (presumably Universal Pictures) shunned Mancini’s enthusiasm for callbacks to Seed within Curse and Cult. He reiterates that due to Seed‘s disappointing haul at the global box office, Universal (again, presumably) wanted to stray away from bringing the sequel to the forefront of viewer’s minds and were more than willing to leave Seed in the dust.
“Initially Seed of Chucky, when it came out in 2004, didn’t do well. And so for a while in the franchise, when we did Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky, even though I wanted to allude to those characters, I was forbidden from doing so by the people we were working with at the time. I’m not trying to villainize them at all. They were awesome, very supportive on the making of those movies. But I think their thinking was, ‘Okay, people didn’t like Seed of Chucky, so we want to stay away from anything that reminds them of that.’ I mean, that’s not the way I felt. I think that was their reasoning.”
Luckily, Don Mancini wasn’t prepared to let Seed go that easily. On Oct. 12, 2021, Mancini unveiled the Chucky series, a ten-episode continuation of Cult that would air on Syfy and the USA Network. Unlike Seed, the series was a huge hit, introducing a new generation of characters into the Child’s Play fold and even bringing back familiar faces in Andy Barclay, Kyle, Jennifer Tilly/Tiffany Valentine and Nica Pierce. On Oct. 5, 2022, Chucky began airing its second season, which brings back Glen/Glenda as a full-grown adult, thus referencing the genderfluid character’s debut in Seed of Chucky and continuing his/her/their storyline. So, it’s safe to assume that Mancini didn’t heed those warnings.
Catch new episodes of Chucky every Wednesday at 8pm CT/9PM EST on Syfy and the USA Network.
