“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is a franchise started by indie-game developer Scott Cawthon. The game was a last resort due to his other games being heavily criticized. However, the game blew up, growing a community that thrives till this day. The series branched from games, to books, to copious amounts of merchandise, and just now, over half a decade since it was teased, we’re getting a movie that will be released Oct. 27, 2023. The movie’s license was passed around by many brands, including Warner Bros, but eventually landed in the hands of Blumhouse. The movie took many years to make due to Cawthon wanting a perfect script, almost single-handedly writing the whole thing.  

According to the Five Nights at Freddy’s Fandom Wiki, the plot of the movie involves “Mike (played by Josh Hutcherson), and his 10-year-old sister named Abby (played by Piper Rubio) stumbling into the supernatural mysteries of the ‘Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria’ location.” 

I have been a close fan of this franchise ever since I was six years old. The first game came out on August 8, the day after my sixth birthday, and I found out about the game’s existence days later after receiving access to the internet. I’ve played every game, I’ve read almost every book, and can point out just about any piece of merch by brand, character, and price; so needless to say, I am very excited for this movie. In order to get some outside opinions, I interviewed sophomore Griffin Komacko about how they feel about the movie’s existence and what they expect to see from it.

“One negative I had is the amount of advertising. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but like, they showed off so many things I feel there’s barely any movie hasn’t shown off yet; however I don’t think this’ll ruin my experience,” Komacko said.

I personally fear about the international premiere dates. Other countries, like England, air the movie in select theatres on the twenty-fifth, giving people the chance to possibly spoil it to people in other regions. A way to avoid this is either fulling staying off social media, or looking in select apps, like X (Twitter), having a “Mute word(s)” option, and blocking words related to the movie. (Ex. ‘FNAF’ ‘FNAF Movie’ ‘Freddy’ ‘Bonnie’ ‘Chica’ ‘Foxy’ ‘Cupcake’ ‘Mike’ ‘Abby’ ‘William’).

While Brownsburg 8 doesn’t have any unique promotions planned for the movie as I write this, there are some select theatres that, in order to further promote the movie, have special deals / offers to go along with the movie. Like a theatre called “Metro Theatres” (sadly none in Indiana) offers a real $5 Pizza with FNAF branding on the box.

Many were concerned about the movie possibly preforming poorly due to it releasing same day on streaming (Peacock). However, I believe since it’s had so much advertising, it’ll still preform greatly, maybe even being the highest grossing horror movie to come out this year. Regardless of some concerns, I’m almost certain that this movie will do great in the box office and will have a special place in the hearts of us FNAF fans and horror fans alike.