The 'Five Nights at Freddy’s' Movie Is Coming This Year

Find out its distribution method before jumping in the ballpit

If you felt Five Nights at Freddy’s getting a movie adaptation was a throwback, so might how it’s being distributed. The film, produced by horror studio Blumhouse and distributed by Universal Pictures, will be released on October 27 of this year.

Its release will be day and date with a theatrical and Peacock release. That’s right, a favorite strategy of the pandemic for all studios has returned, in its peak infamously backfiring for Warner Bros., possibly contributing to the sale to Discovery, and Disney’s usage of Premier Access. However, Peacock was still doing it in 2022, with such films as Marry Me, Firestarter, Halloween Ends, and Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. This is Universal’s only such release in this manner for this year’s slate.

The film adaptation of the nearly decade-old haunted animatronic-filled video game franchise will star Josh Hutcherson as Mike Schmidt, the security guard starting a night-time job at the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza family entertainment center, and Matthew Lillard as William Afton. Afton is the main antagonist who founded Afton Robotics, LLC and co-founded Fazbear Entertainment, Inc., and is responsible for the creation of the Funtime Animatronics. Also starring are Piper Rubio as Mike’s younger sister Abby Schmidt, and Elizabeth Lail and Kat Conner Sterling in undisclosed roles, with Mary Stuart Masterson as a yet-to-be-revealed villain. It is directed by Emma Tammi, who previously did The Wind and Blood Moon, writing the film with franchise creator Scott Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback. The movie’s animatronic characters will be created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and Cawthon is also producing with Blumhouse head Jason Blum.

It is believed and debated that the simultaneous release strategy hobbled the box office potential of Halloween Ends as it opened to $40M but finished with $64M. However, on the Peacock end, it touted scoring a top Nielsen debut over its October 14-16 opening weekend with 717 million minutes viewed. Development on the film began at Warner Bros. in 2015 before moving to Blumhouse and Universal in 2017. Filming took place from February to March.

Source: Deadline