Five Nights at Freddy’s is one of the most successful horror video games in recent years. With eight titles already released -the first one having come out in 2014-, it is an IP that has reached far and wide thanks, above all, to its virality on the internet and to how much the streamers and youtubers of the moment praised it.
Now, the inevitable has arrived: its film adaptation. The production company Blumhouse, famous for making films such as M3GAN, The Black Phone or The Purge, is in charge of making the film on which the video game is based. It has just released the first trailer and, from what we can see so far, it promises a very similar experience to the original game.
The adaptation everyone was waiting for
In Five Nights at Freddy’s we will play the role of Mike Schmidt, a security guard who starts working the night shift at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza and game center. However, he soon discovers that the four animatronic animals have a life of their own, and they’re not exactly friendly. These mascots kill anyone who is there after midnight, and Mike is their next victim. As in the video game, Mike must survive five nights against these hostile characters.
The actor chosen to play Mike Schmidt is none other than Josh Hutcherson. The Hunger Games co-star plays the protagonist, and he is joined by other top performers such as Piper Rubio, Abby Schmidt, Matthew Lillard (who plays William Afton), Kat Conner, Elizabeth Lail and Mary Stuart Masterson.
It is not the first time that Hutcherson plays a character related to video games, as he is the protagonist of Future Man (Disney Plus), a three-season series in which he plays a similar character. As for Five Nights at Freddy’s, the film is scheduled for release next October 27, 2023.
The film will be directed by Emma Tammi (The Wind, Into the Dark) and the script has been refined after years of writing. The original game adaptation was first announced in April 2015, then under the direction of Gil Kenan for Warner Bros, but was ultimately scrapped due to its quality. Blumhouse came in at that time to bring it back, but it has also taken years to, finally, come up with the perfect script. In fact, it was originally going to be directed by Chris Columbus, director of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but that was not the case either.
“We’ve written multiple scripts, and we got to where we’re threading a needle that’s doing Five Nights at Freddy’s justice and making Scott Cawthon happy,” explains the producer, referring to the game’s creator. “I don’t have the right to do anything Scott doesn’t like. Basically, Scott has the right to something like the equivalent of the final cut and it took me longer than I expected to get the story right.”
The animatronics, moreover, come from special effects company Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, founded in 1979 by the legendary Henson, creator of The Muppets and chief asset of Sesame Street. Without a doubt, it’s as if Epi and Blas were now born killers.
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