Child's Play creator Don Mancini reveals why he has waited until now to delve into Charles Lee Ray's backstory with his Chucky TV show. Charles Lee Ray is the serial killer in the Child's Play franchise whose soul is transferred into a Good Guys doll. Brad Dourif has voiced the character in every Child's Play movie to date, except for the reboot in 2019, and is set to reprise his iconic role in the Chucky TV series next month.
In real life, Charles Lee Ray's name was based on Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray. Ray's backstory has been touched upon a few times in the Child's Play franchise, but the series has largely focused on his life after he starts killing people as a doll. The opening of the original 1988 film showed the police chasing Charles Lee Ray and eventually shooting him inside of a toy store. However, before he dies, Ray uses a Haitian voodoo spell to live on inside a Good Guys doll. Curse of Chucky also had a decent-length flashback showing Charles kidnapping Nica Pierce's mother while she was pregnant. Besides those two scenes, audiences haven't seen much of Dourif in the franchise.
Mancini is aware that fans have been wanting to see more of Charles Lee Ray in human form for years but has been deliberately waiting for decades. At a panel during a Television Critics Association press tour (via Variety), Mancini explained that it is mainly because of the length of feature films. There hasn't been enough time in an hour and a half to two-hour movie to devote screen time to Charles Lee Ray, but an eight-episode TV series gives Mancini plenty of room. Check out the Child's Play creator's full quote below:
“Exploring Charles Lee Ray’s origins has been something that the fans have wanted to see, literally for decades now, and one of the reasons I was excited about bringing the franchise into television was because having so much storytelling real estate — eight hours of ‘Chucky’ — will provide it such a great opportunity for exploring that stuff.
A lot of the current marketing material has focused on Chucky and the new cast of characters being introduced in the series. However, the first Chucky trailer that premiered at San Diego Comic-Con this year did show a flashback scene of Charles Lee Ray as a child. The video showed Charles as a child violently cutting into a birthday cake and beating a pinata. Dourif narrated Chucky's childhood origins, but the actor has yet to be seen as an adult Charles Lee Ray. With there being eight episodes of Chucky and the possibility of a second season, the series could cast different actors to show the killer as a child, teenager, and an adult.
While fans have been craving to see more of Chucky's origins, it makes sense that the movies haven't gone into detail on his backstory. Chucky has become one of the most iconic characters in the horror genre, so it's clear that most people watch the Child's Play movies to see a killer doll slashing people to pieces. Die-hard fans would likely watch a movie focusing more on Chucky's human form, but giving too much screen time to Charles Lee Ray would turn others off. Chucky is following suit with a lot of popular franchises that decide to continue stories as a TV show rather than another movie. It's unknown what Mancini's plan is for Chucky after the TV show, but it could be a great way to expand the lore behind the killer doll.
Source: Television Critics Association (via Variety)