How do you follow Five Nights at Freddy’s? Well, you make a sixth night, duh.
Whether or not that it what the movie is called, a second movie is apparently in the works, according to the first film’s star Josh Hutcherson. He told Variety that the creative team behind the franchise is “in the process right now of nailing down the story, and they want to get going as soon as possible … Obviously, the fans are amazing and die hard. For me to be a part of it was was so cool and phenomenal.”
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Five Nights at Freddy’s was one of the biggest surprise box office hits of 2023 — especially because Universal premiered the film simultaneously in theaters and on its Peacock streaming service. Typically that severely affects a movie’s box-office potential; after all, why pay $20 when you can pay $10 for a month of an entire streaming library and the chance to watch a movie without leaving your house or even putting on pants?
But Five Nights at Freddy’s younger target audience relished the chance to see the film on a big screen in a theater surrounded by other Freddy’s fans. The movie grossed over $130 million in the U.S. alone, plus another $150 overseas for a total of almost $290 million worldwide against a reported budget of just $20 million. At that point, a sequel was basically inevitable. The movie was based on the extremely popular video game series created by Scott Cawthon about a spooky abandoned restaurant haunted by sentient animatronic robots.
“We hoped it would connect with audiences, 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,” Hutcherson added.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is currently streaming on Peacock.
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Gallery Credit: Matt Singer
