Universal Pictures has officially set the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 digital release date, revealing when the highly anticipated follow-up to Blumhouse‘s 2023 supernatural horror movie will be available to watch at home.
“One year has passed since the supernatural nightmare at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The stories about what transpired there have been twisted into a campy local legend, inspiring the town’s first-ever Fazfest. Former security guard Mike and police officer Vanessa have kept the truth from Mike’s 11-year-old sister, Abby, concerning the fate of her animatronic friends,” reads the official synopsis. “But when Abby sneaks out to reconnect with Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy, it will set into motion a terrifying series of events, revealing dark secrets about the true origin of Freddy’s, and unleashing a long-forgotten horror hidden away for decades.”
When is the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 digital release date?
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is set to release on digital platforms on December 23, 2025, when the movie will be available to rent or purchase across other platforms. A few months later, on February 17, 2026, the movie will release on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD.
The film’s digital release also comes with a litany of exclusive bonus features when you purchase at participating retailers. The exclusive bonus features include:
EMPLOYEES OF THE MONTH: THE CAST – Revealing interviews and behind-the-scenes footage highlight how actors develop their roles to fill the FNAF world with new mysteries, thrilling surprises, and fan-pleasing lore.
BRINGING FREDDY & FRIENDS TO LIFE – Learn how stunt doubles and puppeteers advance animatronic terror to the next level.
MANGLE MAYHEM – Witness Mangle come to life as a nightmarish, multi-limbed monstrosity.
HIGH-STRUNG – Cast and crew reveal the multiple methods used to turn the Marionette into an eerie entity whose unique design and haunting movements are unlike any other animatronic.
SENSORY OVERLOAD: EXPLORING THE SETS – Actors join the artists behind the production design to serve up details on the Easter eggs and game inspirations lurking inside the incredible sets.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is directed by Emma Tammi from a screenplay written by original game creator Scott Cawthon. The ensemble cast also includes Josh Hutcherson, Piper Rubio, Elizabeth Lail, Freddy Carter, Theodus Crane, Wayne Knight, Mckenna Grace, Teo Briones, Skeet Ulrich, and Matthew Lillard.
The movie is executive-produced by Tammi, Beatriz Sequeira, Christopher Warner, Russell Binder, and Marc Mostman, with Jason Blum and Cawthon serving as producers.
The two stars, known for their roles in Lionsgate‘s original Hunger Games films, will appear in the forthcoming prequel movie The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Lionsgate releases the new feature in theaters Nov. 20, 2026.
Lawrence will reprise her role as Katniss Everdeen, while Hutcherson will return as Peeta Mellark, with the pair likely appearing in a flash-forward. No details have been disclosed.
The book Sunrise on the Reaping takes place in Panem on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games, 24 years before the events in The Hunger Games, the first novel that published in 2008. The franchise’s first five movies have surpassed $3.3 billion at the worldwide box office, with the initial four films led by Lawrence as Katniss, Hutcherson as Peeta, and Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne. The film series kicked off with 2012’s The Hunger Games.
Lawrence and Hutcherson’s most recent entry in the franchise was 2015’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2, which ended with the pair married with children. Lawrence earned a Golden Globe Award nomination this week for her role in Die My Love, while Hutcherson currently stars in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.
Francis Lawrence helms the new movie from a script by Billy Ray that adapts Collins’ book. Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson produce for Color Force, while Cameron MacConomy executive produces.
Sunrise on the Reaping is a sequel to 2023’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which starred Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth and Hunter Schafer.
Lionsgate did not respond for comment.
The InSneiderwas first to report on Lawrence and Hutcherson being involved.
Josh Hutcherson was trying get the hell out of Los Angeles. For the better part of a decade, the “Hunger Games” star and his girlfriend, Spanish actor Claudia Traisac, had split their time between L.A. and Madrid, but the eight-hour time difference between the cities had grown wearying. So Hutcherson leased an apartment in Brooklyn, and in April of this year, the couple flew into New York City from Spain, eager to launch their new East Coast life — until, in the car from JFK, Hutcherson got a call from his agent.
“‘How do you feel about going back to the airport right now?’” Hutcherson recalls his agent asking. “I was like, ‘I don’t fucking feel good about it, not at all! Why?’”
The agent explained that Rachel Sennott, the buzzy star of indie hits “Bottoms” and “Shiva Baby,” was launching her first comedy series with HBO, and she wanted Hutcherson to play her character’s boyfriend. But it was going to start shooting in roughly two weeks, and the show’s eventual title doubled as its location: “I Love L.A.”
It was the phone call that Hutcherson had spent years waiting to get. He’d been acting since he was 9; he’d landed his first starring role at 13, in “Zathura: A Space Adventure”; he had a key supporting role in 2010 best picture nominee “The Kids Are All Right” at 16; and when he was 18, he was catapulted into global superstardom when he was cast as Peeta Mellark in “The Hunger Games.” But as Hutcherson drifted toward 30, the roles started to dry up.
“I went through a few years where it was kind of slim pickings, and I wasn’t doing much,” he says quietly, swirling his coffee cup outside a bistro in L.A.’s Echo Park neighborhood. “A lot of young actors don’t make the transition, or the industry kicks them out. I was kind of like, is this the time where I’m over it and done?”
Instead, at 33, Hutcherson is entering a new career peak. On Dec. 5, he’ll star in Blumhouse’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” adapted from the feverishly popular video game franchise — the first “Freddy’s” movie was an unexpected hit in 2023, grossing $292 million worldwide. And after scrambling to get out of his NYC lease, he did indeed join the cast of “I Love L.A.,” an experience that “reignited such a love and appreciation for this job in me,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to do an HBO comedy on Sunday night. That, to me, is a dream come true.”
Rachel Sennott and Josh Hutcherson in “I Love L.A.”
Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
On “I Love L.A.” — which premiered on Nov. 2, runs through Dec. 21 and was just renewed for a second season — Hutcherson plays Dylan, a schoolteacher who loves his live-in girlfriend Maia (Sennott), despite the chaos that her ambition to become a talent manager brings into his life.
“I grew up watching him in ‘Bridge to Terabithia’ and ‘The Hunger Games,’ and there’s something about him, how warm and lovely he is,” Sennott told Variety in October. “I was so impressed by his comedic and improv chops. But also, for audiences, I think you see him and you feel like he’s your boyfriend a little.”
Hutcherson smiles when I tell him Sennott’s reasoning for casting him. “I am known as the good-hearted golden boy, which I’m not mad about,” he says. He has tried to break free of that perception, most recently by playing the toxic tech bro villain in the 2024 Jason Statham action film “The Beekeeper.” But with “I Love L.A.,” Hutcherson says he was “happy to lean into” his Good Guy persona. “If it got me on set and shooting this with Rachel — it’s meant to be.”
Part of the appeal were the days during the eight-week shoot when Hutcherson literally walked to work. “The first script mentioned Erewhon and Tenants of the Trees and the reservoir,” he says, ticking off landmarks of L.A.’s Eastside. “That’s my circuit. That’s where I’ve been haunting for years.”
He also felt at home as the only character on the show who isn’t obsessed with breaking into show business. “Even though I’ve been doing this since I was 9, and I’m so wildly in this industry, I don’t feel like I am in so many ways,” he says. “I don’t go to events unless I need to be there. I’m not active on social media unless the studio is like, we need you to be. I’ve always been one foot in, one foot out. When I started, I didn’t have a hunger for becoming famous; I just wanted to make movies and TV shows. I feel like that aligns with Dylan. He just wants to exist and do something he cares about.”
The chance to play an everyday adult living in the world as it exists in 2025 is rare for any actor right now, and Hutcherson does not take it for granted. “I’ve grown up working with tennis balls and green screens,” he says. “I don’t have to try to convince the audience that we’re, like, X amount of years in the future in a dystopic society or that these animatronics are possessed by ghost children.”
Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
He’s referring, of course, to the “Freddy’s” movies, which revolve around a creepy, long-shuttered pizzeria joint à la Chuck E. Cheese and its homicidal robot animal mascots that are embodied by the spirits of murdered kids. The elaborate animatronic costumes created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop can be worn by the performers only for 30 minutes at a time before the weight and heat become overwhelming. And when they do have the costumes on, there’s no guarantee they’re going to work right.
“The stunt actor has to turn and look to the right, but then three people with remote controls have to make the eyes time with the blink,” Hutcherson says. “You’ll do 10 takes, because the animatronic movement isn’t quite working. That one take that the animatronic is perfect, you better be perfect too, because that’s the one that’s going in the movie.”
The sequel, Hutcherson estimates, has “more than double” the creatures from the first film, one of which, the character called Mangle, requires “a team of 10 or 12 people to operate.”
“And the animatronics might find a way to leave the pizzeria,” he adds, “which is a big deal.”
But wait, I say, didn’t the titular Freddy exit the pizzeria in the first movie?
“Yes, but there’s, like, certain rules of the game that —” he says, his voice slowing down and raising in pitch with each successive word. “It’s murky. And I don’t fully get it, but I know it’s a big deal that the animatronics that leave, leave. It’s a whole thing.”
When Hutcherson signed on to the first “Freddy’s,” he didn’t really grasp the size of the “absolutely rabid fan base” for the mid-2010s video games that inspired the films “until after the movie came out.” But as he talks about shooting the sequel — directed once again by Emma Tammi, and written by the game’s creator, Scott Cawthon — I get the feeling that Hutcherson is still simply along for the ride.
Josh Hutcherson and director Emma Tammi on the set of “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2”
Ryan Green / Universal Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
“The main focus is making something that the FNAF fandom will go crazy for,” he says, pronouncing the acronym as the fans do: “fuh-naff.” “Sometimes I’m like, ‘This doesn’t make any sense! How can I possibly do this?’ And they’re like, ‘It’s from the game.’” He starts laughing as he puts up his hands in surrender. “‘All right, all right, all right, I’m on board, I’m on board.’ But it’s crazy.”
Satisfying the exacting expectations of a vocal fanbase is certainly familiar territory for Hutcherson, after spending half a decade with Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth inside the “Hunger Games” maelstrom. As his time with that franchise was coming to an end with 2015’s “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2,” Hutcherson says he went through a phase where he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. “I was like, ‘Fuck that,’” he says matter-of-factly. “I got thrust into a place of notoriety that I never dreamed of, never wanted. It took privacy from me.”
To this day, Hutcherson avoids crowded public places, including in Madrid, and strangers yelling “Peeta” at him is a daily occurrence. But he’s grown to appreciate everything that “The Hunger Games” has provided him, so much so that his face lights up when I bring up the prospect of making another film with the core team, including director Francis Lawrence and co-star Woody Harrelson. “I would love to be back on set with Francis, with Jen, with Liam, with Woody,” he says. “It would not take any convincing at all. I’d be there in a heartbeat.”
There’s a chance that could happen sooner than one may expect. Francis Lawrence is in production on an adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel “Sunrise on the Reaping,” which chronicles the Hunger Games experience from the perspective of Harrelson’s character Haymitch Abernathy when he was 16 — and ends with an epilogue set after the events of “Mockingjay,” featuring Haymitch, Peeta and series heroine Katniss Everdeen.
Hutcherson learned of that coda only as the book hit shelves in March. So, I ask, is he in the new movie?
He breaks into a massive grin. “That would be a dream come true,” he says, holding my gaze.
I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to communicate to me, I say.
“It would be a dream come true,” he repeats. “Do dreams come true? Sometimes. Sometimes not. Sometimes, yeah.”
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is less than a month away, so we’re getting ready for another trip to our favorite cursed children’s pizza joint by re-watching the first film from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures.
The first Five Nights at Freddy’s from director Emma Tammi put a fun spin on the lore from the games created by Scott Cawthon and weaved it into one hell of a horror gateway flick for genre newbies or folks interested in a cinematic take on the franchise. Hey, we took one look at the animatronics from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and our Chuck E. Cheese band puppet nostalgia was activated. The genre mashup was exciting, plus the cute plushes and new favorite icons like Chica and Cupcake stole our hearts (especially at this year’s Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights).
Here’s a recap of everything you need to remember about Five Nights at Freddy’s before its sequel releases on December 5.
1. The new spin on Five Nights at Freddy’s game lore
Mike Schmidt (Josh Hutcherson) is haunted by the kidnapping of his younger brother, Garrett, back in the ’80s. In the movie’s present day, it’s the 2000s, and he’s now the adult caretaker of their youngest sister, Abby (Piper Rubio), after the loss of their mother and their dad’s absence.
2. Mike took the worst job ever
After attacking a dad at the mall—mistakenly thinking the man was abducting his own child—Mike loses his job and is on thin ice as Abby’s guardian. Their meddling aunt tries to swoop in to get custody in order to get the guardianship money from the state. Mike’s last-ditch effort to get a job, any job, lands him at the desk of Steve Raglan (Matthew Lillard), who offers him a gig no one else can seem to hold down.
That job turns out to be the night guard at a run-down Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a formerly popular children’s entertainment center and pizzeria known for its beloved animatronic mascot performers. Raglan plays the role of the caller from the games who instructs him on what to do to keep the owner happy, which is to keep people out and the place clean. Mike keeps watch through the security broadcast on the television screen, evoking that isolating Five Nights vibe.
4. The past is all connected
Overnight, Mike continues to battle his inner demons, which come in the form of recurring nightmares about the day Garrett was taken. However, his dreams take a turn as he sees new children appear to him in the dream who weren’t previously there. When he wakes, he gets the sense that the animatronics he’s supposed to be watching might be watching him.
5. Deaths in this world are metal as hell, literally
The first victims of the animatronic gang are led by Abby’s babysitter, bribed by Mike’s aunt in an effort to sabotage his new job. The babysitter and her pals stage a break-in and end up becoming broken toys themselves for Freddy and friends. The babysitter gets such a brutal death, being chomped cleanly in half by Freddy. It’s what she deserves, though, for trespassing and all.
6. There are ghosts!
Mike is forced to take Abby with him to spend the night at Freddy’s since her sitter is a no-show. There, she, like us, becomes obsessed with the puppet animals, who look so cuddly and friendly. They likewise become obsessed with Abby and quickly reveal to her and Mike that they’re alive. As it turns out, the animatronics are controlled by the ghosts of missing children: Gabriel (Freddy), Cassidy (Golden Freddy), Jeremy (Bonnie), Fritz (Foxy), and Susie (Chica). Earlier, Mike learned that Freddy Fazbear’s folded when five kids went missing at that location back in the ’80s—thanks to Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), the police officer who checks up on the place during the day.
Vanessa shows up and tells Mike that she knows the possessed puppets, and they have cute, fun playtimes together. Abby discovers their adorable drawings but notices there is a constant in all of them: a mysterious Yellow Rabbit they all mention to her as a scary presence. Vanessa encourages Mike to keep Abby away from the animatronics because they can be a lot. The adorable friendship between Abby, Freddy, Foxy, Chica, and Bonnie goes south relatively quickly as the animatronics decide they want her to be their friend forever. As in forever, through joining them in an animatronic suit of her own.
8. Abby was almost traded for information about Garrett
Since they all disappeared around the same time, it is implied that Garrett might have been abducted by the same person who murdered the ghost kids. Mike briefly considers trading Abby for information about Garrett but quickly changes his mind because that’s crazy. To the ghost kids, who react as kids do, it’s not cool at all, and they attempt to kill Mike in one of the decommissioned springlock suits. Thankfully, Vanessa shows up to save him.
9. The truth about Vanessa
Meanwhile, Cassidy/Golden Freddy and the gang take matters into their own robotic hands and follow Abby to her aunt’s place to give the toxic relative a well-earned death and take their bestie back to Freddy Fazbear’s. Once they’re all back, Vanessa confesses that she’s the daughter of Freddy Fazbear’s owner, William Afton, who kidnapped and murdered kids she helped lure for him. It’s something she too carries over as trauma, as she knew their bodies were hidden in the animatronics.
As Mike deactivates the animatronics before they can claim Abby, the Yellow Rabbit shows up to wreak havoc on the situation. It turns out that this Springtrap is not operated by a ghost but by William Afton, who posed as Steve Raglan, and he’s very mad that too many people now know his big secret. It’s a secret Vanessa has been in on since she’s still her daddy’s little girl and, for obvious implications, has helped keep his dirty secrets locked down despite trying to stay on the right side of the law as an adult.
She was pretty much covering up for both of them since she saw herself as an accomplice, but she turns on him as he tries to kill Mike. That results in his stabbing her, and we have to mention Lillard wipes his character’s knife in the way he did as Ghostface (love a Scream Easter egg). Abby quickly draws the truth of who killed her ghost friends and shows them, and they set their sights on Afton, realizing he’s the Yellow Bunny, and tear him apart. Afton promises he will come back; he always does, as he dies in the suit.
Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, and Timothee Chalamet (from left) in Dune. Ryan Stetz/HBO
Whether you want surprisingly funny family dramas, international excellence, or a refresher on one of the decade’s biggest sci-fi franchises, you’re in luck. From indies to blockbusters, these are the titles you need to watch before they leave streaming this month.
What’s leaving Netflix
The Farewell
While Lulu Wang’s star-studded series Expatsis still unfurling, why not watch the movie that catapulted the director into the mainstream? The Farewell stars Awkwafina as Billi, an aspiring writer who’s struggling to find work and her place as a Chinese American woman. When she hears that her beloved grandmother, Nai Nai, has been diagnosed with cancer, though, she drops everything to go see her in China. However, there’s another issue: the family is keeping Nai Nai’s diagnosis a secret from her, and a reluctant Billi must do so too. The Farewellwill be available to stream until February 29th.
Dune
After a lengthy, strike-related delay, Dune: Part Two is finally on the horizon. The second installment of Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic (out March 1st) features a sprawling cast (with new additions Austin Butler and Florence Pugh) on top of a dense mythos, so there’s no time like the present to catch up by watching Dune. Timothée Chalamet stars as Paul, heir to the House Atreides within the galactic empire, who must contend with political threats to his father (Oscar Isaac) and strange trials courtesy of his mother (Rebecca Ferguson). Along the way, he encounters friends and foes alike, played by Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Jason Momoa, and Josh Brolin. Dunestreams through the end of the month.
What’s leaving Hulu
Paddington
As winter truly begins to wear on us all, it’s the perfect time to watch some of the coziest movies of the 21st century. Paddington and its sequel are the rare family movie franchise to truly appeal to all ages, from the title bear’s expertly animated cuddliness to the A-list actors who get to play cartoonish villains (Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, the latter in a BAFTA-nominated performance). Though sweet little Paddington gets himself into quite the precarious predicaments, his mantra of “if we’re kind and polite, the world will be right” always holds true. Paddingtonstreams until the end of the month, while Paddington 2is available through February 26th.
What’s leaving Max
Drive My Car
Layered, lengthy, and packed with a lot of languages, Drive My Car is one of the most daring dramas of the decade so far. The film follows a theater actor and director who discovers his wife’s infidelity before her untimely death. Bereft and unmoored, he decides to accept a theater residency that will have him directing a multilingual production of Uncle Vanya. Ultimately, it’s a movie about understanding, and how we may never be able to achieve it when it comes to those we love. Everything about the film is superb, and there’s a reason why the movie was nominated for four Oscars. Drive My Carstreams through the end of the month.
What’s leaving Peacock
Five Nights at Freddy’s
One of last year’s biggest horror hits is departing streaming later this month. Five Nights at Freddy’s became a smash success when it was released in theaters and on Peacock last October, bringing the thrills from the beloved video game to screens both big and small. Josh Hutcherson stars as Mike, a man so desperate for a job that he takes on a gig as a nighttime security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a family pizzeria-slash-arcade with plenty of skeletons in its supply closets. Before long, things begin to go bump in the night, leaving Mike to solve a decades-old mystery. Five Nights at Freddy’sstreams through February 25th.
The Descendants
While The Holdoverscurrently stands as a favorite at the Oscars, it’s far from the first time that filmmaker Alexander Payne has seen success with the Academy. In fact, he won his second Oscar in 2012 for The Descendants, a complex family dramedy. George Clooney stars as Matt, a man who’s inherited and attained great wealth (including a large swath of land in Hawaii), but all of that stability vanishes when his wife gets in an accident that leaves her comatose. He must grapple with his role as a cousin, a husband and a father to his two daughters (Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller). The Descendantsstreams through the end of the month.
What to Watchis a regular endorsement of movies and TV worth your streaming time.
Josh Hutcherson starred in one of 2023 biggest box office success stories — the horror video game adaptation “Five Nights at Freddy’s” — and he recently told Variety that things are moving along on the second chapter. Hutcherson, who is currently on the press circuit for the action movie “The Beekeeper,” suggested the status of a “Five Nights at Freddy’s” sequel is looking good.
“I know they’re in the process right now of nailing down the story, and they want to get going as soon as possible,” Hutcherson said. “Obviously, the fans are amazing and die hard. For me to be a part of it was was so cool and phenomenal.
“We hoped it would connect with audiences,” he continued. “But I don’t think that anybody, even on our side of things, expected it to really connect the way that it did. I’m dying to get back on set. Emma Tammi, our director, was fantastic, and it was such a fun world to play in. I’m excited to see what they are doing next.”
Variety has reached out to Blumhouse for additional comment.
Hutcherson also shared that his “Hunger Games” co-star Jennifer Lawrence dropped him a line to celebrate “Five Nights at Freddy’s” box office success, on the same weekend that her film “No Hard Feelings” topped the Netflix chart.
“Jen texted me when “Freddy’s’ came out,” Hutcherson said. “She was like, ‘My movie’s #1 on Netflix, and your’s is #1 at the box office! Let’s go!’ I was like, ‘I love you!’”
Hutcherson’s new film, “The Beekeeper,” is debuting in theaters on Jan. 12.
In defense of English dubs, no one does it better than Studio Ghibli. It’s not a matter of either-or; with the incredible global talents that span the original Japanese voices and the English casts, it just means we get more!
With the release of The Boy and the Heron, which featuresRobert Pattinson’s dedicated vocal bird transformation, we’re looking back at the best Studio Ghibli dubs. When it comes to Hayao Miyazaki’s films, care has always been taken between by the Disney and GKIDS distributors to cast the English roles with incredible talent. It’s no easy feat to perform in sync with animation, let alone in a foreign language, but it helps to have the guidance of directors such as Pixar’s Pete Docter (Howl’s Moving Castle) who approach the task with appropriate reverence. While we understand the importance of subtitles—and we’d never take away from the wonderful work of the original Japanese voice casts—dubs help make the films accessible to more audiences. And as an animation fan, I love dubs because I can bask in the art and storytelling without reading and then revisiting with subtitles. It’s a preference and a gateway for more global animation to travel the world.
Here’s a list of the top 10 English Studio Ghibli dubs we love.
Universal and Blumhouse‘s Five Nights at Freddy’s is off to a historic start at the domestic box office, helping drive overall revenue
The latest horror offering from Universal and Blumhouse opened to a record-smashing $78 million, despite debuting simultaneously on sister streaming service Peacock. It started off with a monstrous Friday haul of $39.5 million, including $10.3 million in Thursday previews.
The pic — which came in notably ahead of industry expectations — scared up the third-biggest horror opening of all time behind New Line’s two It movies, as well as the best showing ever for Halloween weekend. It’s also the biggest horror opening of 2023 to date, besting Scream VI ($44.4 million), and the second-biggest opening of all time for a video-game adaptation behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($146.3 million), not adjusted for inflation.
The news is just as good overseas, where Five Nights at Freddy’s opened to an estimated $52.6 million from 60 markets for a global start of $130.6 million against a modest $25 million production budget. It supplants New Line’s The Nun II ($88.1 million) to boast the year’s biggest worldwide start for a horror film.
Freddy’s passed up Halloween, which started off with $76.2 million in 2018, to mark the biggest domestic opening ever for Blumhouse, not adjusted for inflation. It is also Blumhouse’s top global launch. Other honorable mentions: Freddy’s supplants The Mummy Returns ($68.1 million) to rank as the top opening ever for a horror pic rated PG-13, not adjusted for inflation.
While most critics bashed Freddy’s, the audience graced the movie with an A- CinemaScore (it is rare for a horror pic to receive an A or any variation thereof).
Universal insiders say the decision to do a day-and-date release is a win-win for the overall ecosystem (only paid-tier Peacock subscribers have access). Those who want the communal experience of watching a horror movie in a theater can do so, while Peacock can woo much-needed subscribers. Streamers see notable growth in October because of Halloween-themed offerings.
Before the pandemic, most theaters would have outright refused to book a title already available in the home. The COVID-19 crisis changed everything, however, with the traditional 72- to 90-day theatrical window shrinking dramatically to as little as three weeks for films that open to less than $50 million. Day-and-date releases aren’t the norm, but no cinema operator was going to refuse to play Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Directed by Emma Tammi, Freddy‘s stars Josh Hutcherson as a washed-up security guard who has no choice but to take a crappy job safeguarding a long-shuttered family-themed pizza restaurant. The only problem — the pizzeria’s giant animatronic animal characters spring to life and go on murderous rampages. He’s also trying to maintain sole custody of his 10-year-old sister (Piper Rubio) and prevent her from falling into the clutches of their Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson).
Things go from bad to worse when a group of local toughs hired by Jane break into Freddy’s while Mike is off-duty to trash the joint so he’ll lose his job. Needless to say, the giant animatronic animals don’t like the intrusion and try to exact their revenge.
Kat Conner Sterling and Matthew Lillard also star. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop created the animatronic characters.
Elsewhere, Taylor Swift and AMC Theatres’ Eras Tour achieved another huge milestone in singing past the $200 million mark at the worldwide box office, a first for a concert film. It earned another $14.7 million domestically to finish its third weekend with a North American cume of $149.3 million and $203 million globally (the pic only plays Thursday-Sunday).
Martin Scorsese‘s adult-skewing Killers of the Flower Moon came in third behind Freddy’s and Eras Tour with an estimated $9 million, a sharp decline of 61 percent. Apple Original Films produced and financed the $200 million film, with Paramount handling distribution duties. The movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, is counting on being a slow burn as Oscar season unfolds, but the producers had hoped for a smaller drop in the film’s second weekend.
Killers of the Flower Moon earned another $14.1 million from 64 markets oversea for a foreign tally of $44 million and $88.6 million globally.
Angel Studios opened its first release since its indie film Sound of Freedom took the summer box office by storm. Its new faith-based movie, After Death, took in $5 million to come in No. 4.
Blumhouse and Universal’s The Exorcist: The Believer, which is now available on Premium VOD after a disappointing showing at the box office, rounded out the top five in its fourth weekend. The movie grossed $3.1 million for a domestic total of $61 million and $120.4 million globally.
The specialty box office saw two high-profile Oscar hopefuls enter the fray, Focus Features’ The Holdovers and A24’s Priscilla. The two films opened in several locations both in New York and Los Angeles, with each reporting a promising per-location average in the $33,000 range.
The Holdovers grossed $200,000 from six locations for a per-theater average of $33,333. Priscilla, launching in four cinemas, earned $132,139 for a location average of $33,035.
Oct. 29, 8:10 a.m.: Updated with revised weekend estimates.
This story was originally published at 7:55 a.m. Saturday.
Five Nights at Freddy‘s partied hard on its first night in theaters.
The latest horror offering from Universal and Blumhouse scared up a massive $10.3 million in Thursday previews at the domestic box office. That’s on par with New Line’s It: Chapter Two ($10.5 million), which debuted to a record $91 million in 2019, not adjusted for inflation. And it’s notably ahead of Blumhouse/Universal’s Halloween ($7.7 million), which also smashed records when opening to $76.2 million in 2018, as well as Halloween Kills ($4.9 million) and Halloween Ends ($5.4 million), not adjusted for inflation. It also trumped Jordan Peele’s Us ($7.4 million).
Freddy’s is tracking to open to $45 million to $50 million, a huge sum considering that the movie is being released simultaneously on Universal’s sister streaming service, Peacock (only paid-tier subscribers will have access). Others think it will do notably more, a premise backed up by the preview gross. But no one knows yet how front-loaded the film is.
Universal insiders say the decision to do a day-and-date release is a win-win for the overall ecosystem. Those who want the communal experience of watching a horror movie in a theater can do so, while Peacock can woo much-needed subscribers. (Apparently, streamers see notable growth in October because of Halloween-themed offerings.)
Before the pandemic, most theaters would have outright refused to book a title already available in the home. The COVID-19 crisis changed everything, however, with the traditional 72-to-90 day theatrical window shrinking dramatically to as early as three weeks for films that open to less than $50 million. Day-and-date releases aren’t the norm, but no cinema operator was going to refuse playing Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Directed by Emma Tammi, Freddy’s stars Josh Hutcherson as washed-up security guard who has no choice but to take a crappy job safeguarding a long-shuttered family-themed pizza restaurant. The only problem — the pizzeria’s giant animatronic animal characters spring to life and go on murderous rampages. He’s also trying to maintain sole custody of his 10-year-old sister (Piper Rubio) and prevent her from falling into the clutches of their aunt (Mary Stuart Masterson).
Things go from bad to worse when a group of local toughs hired by Aunt Jane break into Freddy’s while Mike is off-duty to trash the joint so he’ll lose his job. Needless to say, the giant animatronic animals don’t like the intrusion.
Kat Conner Sterling and Matthew Lillard also star. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop created the animatronic characters.
“There has been perhaps no other category of film that has enjoyed the cinematic history, enduring popularity and box office consistency as the horror genre and this weekend will continue the tradition with Five Nights At Freddy’s set to scare up one of the best, if not the best horror debut of 2023,” says box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which only plays Thursday-Sunday, has grossed a record $132 million domestically and $46.8 million overseas. The movie is tipped to earn another $12 million to $15 million.
Martin Scorsese’s adult-skewing Killers of the Flower Moon hopes to enjoy a strong hold in its second weekend after opening to $23.2 million domestically. The movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, should pull in $12 million.
Eight years after the film was first announced, a trailer finally dropped for the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie — and it looks bloody good.
On Tuesday evening, Universal released its first teaserfor the horror movie based on the supernatural survival video game of the same name. From the looks of it, the adaptation seems to follow the source material pretty closely.
The film follows an ill-fated security guard (Josh Hutcherson), who encounters a series of paranormal terrors at the pizza restaurant where he’s taken the graveyard shift. As the night goes on, he realizes something sinister wants a piece of him.
In the trailer, which amassed more than 8.8 million views in under 24 hours, Hutcherson is seen anxiously walking around the haunted Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza restaurant shouting “Hello” as he scopes out his eerie surroundings.
An ominously cheerful narrator then says, “We’re going to have so much fun together” as Freddy the bear appears in the dark with chilling red eyes.
The massively successful game dropped in 2014 and has since sparked a wave of spinoff games and novels.
In the popular horror game, players act as an anonymous night guard who struggles to survive five nights at the pizza joint while being pursued by multiple murderous animatronics ― including Nightmare Freddy, Scrap Baby, Molten Freddy and Lefty ― who want to slice him like a slice of pizza.
The new film is directed by Emma Tammi (“The Wind”) and also stars Elizabeth Lail, Kat Conner Sterling, Piper Rubio, Mary Stuart Masterson and Matthew Lillard.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is set to hit theaters and Peacock on Oct. 27.
Five Nights At Freddy’s, often abbreviated as FNAF, is a hugely popular horror game series. Blumhouse is cashing in, and now we have an authentic look at it.
The series was created as an app by Scott Cawthon, who wrote and programmed the first entry in the series in 6 months. The story behind its development is actually a very interesting one.
Initially, Scott Cawthon created Christian-oriented games. Five Nights At Freddy’s was born out of an earlier game, called Chipper and Sons Lumber Co. While it was intended to be a family-friendly outing, it ended up terrifying players inadvertently.
Cawthon was initially unhappy with that reception until he went out of his way to make something intentionally scary. Five Nights At Freddy’s was released, and it quickly went viral after gaining a large player base among Let’s Players. As the game picked up steam, Cawthon continued producing sequels and spin-offs until an entire media empire was born.
There have been unofficial attempts to adapt Five Nights At Freddy’s loosely, such as the 2021 action horror comedy Willy’s Wonderland. That being said, Scott Cawthon is working closely with Blumhouse to make this film as accurate a representation of the source material as can be.
“Universal Pictures will release Blumhouse’s FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S on Friday, October 27, 2023 wide. The film will also premiere day-and-date with theatrical on Peacock.
About FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S Can you survive five nights?
The terrifying horror game phenomenon becomes a blood-chilling cinematic event, as Blumhouse— the producer of M3GAN, The Black Phone and The Invisible Man— brings Five Nights at Freddy’s to the big screen.
The film follows a troubled security guard as he begins working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. While spending his first night on the job, he realizes the night shift at Freddy’s won’t be so easy to make it through.
Starring Josh Hutcherson (Ultraman, The Hunger Games franchise), Matthew Lillard (Good Girls, Scream), Elizabeth Lail (You, Mack & Rita), Kat Conner Sterling (We Have A Ghost, 9-1-1), Piper Rubio (Holly & Ivy, Unstable) and Mary Stuart Masterson (Blindspot, Fried Green Tomatoes). Five Nights at Freddy’s is directed by Emma Tammi (The Wind, Blood Moon) and is written by Scott Cawthon, Emma Tammi and Seth Cuddeback.
The film’s iconic animatronic characters will be created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is produced by Jason Blum and Scott Cawthon. The film’s executive producers are Bea Sequeira, Russell Binder and Christopher H. Warner. Universal Pictures presents a Blumhouse production, in association with Striker Entertainment”.
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