This weekend, the latest of upcoming horror movies is here with Blumhouse’s Imaginary. The movie centers on an evil teddy bear named Chauncey who terrorizes a young child who latches on to him as her new best friend after she finds him in her family’s new residence. But where did the idea for Chauncey the Bear first hit its writers? When CinemaBlend spoke to co-writer/director Jeff Wadlow (alongside producer Jason Blum) about the making of the movie, he shared the killer teddy’s origins.
When I sat down with the Imaginary filmmakers, I was curious if the movie’s dangerous imaginary friend was ever any different than the unsettling teddy we see in the new release. Especially since “imaginary” could theoretically encompass pretty much anything. Here’s what Wadlow shared:
Very early on I knew I wanted to make this imaginary friend movie and Greg [Erb] and Jason [Orenland], my co-writers wanted to do an evil teddy bear. And, it was their idea to call him Chauncey. So many people have asked me like, where's the name Chauncey come from? And I just say, I don't know. Greg and Jason on day one were like, we wanna call him Chauncey. I was like, yes.[Laughs] I mean, that's what I like to do as a director. You know, when I hear a good idea, I don't need to question it. If it's a good idea, it's in the movie.
Hey, sometimes it’s not that deep. Per the co-writer and director of Imaginary, it was always going to be a teddy bear from the get-go, which makes a lot of sense considering it's the most classic of stuffed animals. And in terms of the character’s unique name, it sounds like it came from a random strike of genius from one of his other collaborators.
While we’ll keep the origins of Chauncey in the context of the movie underwraps for the time being, so you have a chance to experience it yourself in theaters, Wadlow also spoke with us about how Chauncey as a character changed during the development of Imaginary. Here’s what he had to say:
There was an early version of the script that was much more Chucky, where Chauncey talked a lot and he ran around and did things, and we saw that happening. And, I think Greg [Erb] and Jason [Blum], my collaborators, I've loved working with them, but I think they saw the movie a little bit more that way at first and I was more interested in sort of the subjective nature of a story about imagination. How could we toy with the audience's understanding of what was real and what wasn't? And we were trying to find the intersection of the two. And it was really Cooper Samuelson at Blumhouse who kind of runs creative for Jason, who pushed back hard against the Chucky version. He was like, ‘This is not gonna work.’ And, he was right. It forced us to lean more into the sort of the imaginary world that was being created.
As Wadlow shared, Imaginary ultimately became more of a mix of psychological horror and horror fantasy in its theatrical release, rather than stepping on the bloody legacy of Chucky. While Chauncey gets to carve his own path away from other horror films like it, oddly enough it’s not the only imaginary friend film among 2024 movies. John Krasinski has also directed a family-friendly movie called IF that stars the likes of Ryan Reynolds and Steve Carell.
With Chauncey now haunting theaters everywhere, you can check out what critics are saying about it, including through CinemaBlend’s Imaginary review. You can also learn about how the cast felt about working with a killer teddy on set while we’re on the subject.
