Halloweekend was made for frights at the box office, but few could have predicted the jump-scare of a $78 million opening for “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” Universal’s video game adaptation, hailing from game creator Scott Cawthorn and Blumhouse, just beat out “Scream VI” and “M3GAN” for biggest horror release of the year while streaming simultaneously on Peacock.
“Freddy’s” is the story of Mike (Josh Hutcherson), a security guard trapped in a literal dead-end job at a Chuck E. Cheese-esque arcade and restaurant opposite five haunted animatronics: Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie the Rabbit, Foxy the Pirate, Chica the Chicken, and Carl the Cupcake. Along for the night shift is his 10-year-old sister Abby (Piper Rubio) and a spectacularly hapless local cop, Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail).
FNaF doesn’t sound like the stuff of groundbreaking horror. (Note: Gamers often pronounce the abbreviation as one word: “fin-aff.”) It lacks the social commentary of “Get Out” or the viral campiness of “M3GAN.” It’s a first-person game that focuses more on the player’s perspective than a protagonist’s, placing you behind a desk of surveillance monitors as robotic monsters circle ever closer. The series has sold over 33.5 million units since 2014 with nine installments, a handful of spinoffs, accompanying novels and comics that tell a surprisingly detailed epic anchored inside the cursed pizzeria.
The PG-13 film adaptation fared poorly among adult critics with 25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes as of mid-Sunday. (IndieWire gave it a “D”: “antiseptic, with no grit or grime that could give it flavor or identity of its own.”) Not that it mattered: The elusive younger audience showed up in droves and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” earned a stunning “A-“ on CinemaScore. It trounces every IP horror resurrection this year, including “Scream VI” ($44.5 million opening), “Saw X” ($18.3 million opening), and David Gordon Green’s “The Exorcist: Believer” ($26.5 million opening).
FNaF puts all those movies and more to shame as the second highest-grossing fall film behind “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.” Since every studio will want to pull off Halloween miracles of their own, here’s our cheat sheet on how they can start thinking very differently for 2024.
Viral Community Can Make for a Massive Built-In Audience
FNaF might be new to cinephiles, but not for anyone who’s been on video game social media at all over the past decade. Cawthorn developed the 2014 game as a response to criticisms to his earlier Christian-themed, non-horror game, which was accidentally terrifying. He combined the disturbing character designs with intense atmosphere and relentless jump-scares, creating a formula ideal for a viral horror community.
Reaction videos served as the game’s most powerful marketing weapo n. Compilation videos of famous gamers screaming their heads off did massive numbers on social media. For example, YouTube sensation Markiplier first indulged in FNaF as a “Let’s Play” opportunity — a video format in which stars or hosts react to games in real-time while playing them — with a 2014 video titled “WARNING: SCARIEST GAME IN YEARS.” The upload has since earned more than 114 million views. He routinely returns to the franchise for his millions of subscribers.
That format is now replicated for movie fans. Look for “Five Nights at Freddy’s” reaction videos and you’ll find a growing contingent of what one could ostensibly call “Let’s Watch” videos. Gamers and movie buffs are recording their first experiences with the film and generating buzz with terrified, tickled, and even disappointed reactions.
Toss in the six uber-popular streamers who make cameos and Universal had a ready-made and unparalleled marketing opportunity. YouTuber CoryxKenshin, who has 17.3 million YouTube subscribers, plays a taxi driver in the movie and made a reaction video to the film in late June; it’s racked up 9.6 million views.
Gaming I.P. Will Consistently Surprise You
With their own platforms, publications, calendars, and tastemakers, video games exist in a cultural ecosystem that runs parallel but separate from mainstream film and TV. That separation makes it easy to miss just how lucrative gaming can be. One of 2023’s hottest games, Marvel’s “Spider-Man 2,” sold 2.5 million copies in its first 24 hours. With a price of $69.99, that makes for nearly $175 million — an opening that would be a wild success for even the biggest Marvel movies. The year’s bestselling game, “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” has grossed nearly $1.3 billion so far. And Epic Games’ “Fortnite” has over 500 million active users and generates roughly $5 billion per year.
Hollywood has a famously fraught history when it comes to adapting video games, but the lesson of 2023 is that when it works, it really works. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” grossed $1.3 billion worldwide despite unspectacular reviews by staying true to one of the most beloved pieces of I.P. on the planet. When a film accurately captures the spirit of a video game and its fanbase embraces it (no small feat), the massive box-office success is less surprising.
PG-13 Audiences Are a Largely Untapped Horror Demographic
One of the biggest lessons from “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is a simple one: Offer a product that nobody else is making. With the exception of the PG-13 “M3GAN” ($181 million worldwide and a sequel on the way), all of 2023’s biggest horror movies were rated R. From “The Exorcist: Believer” and “Scream” to “Talk to Me” and “Evil Dead Rise,” new horror releases consistently excluded younger audiences (and horror fans with kids). Disney’s PG-13, critically panned “Haunted Mansion” failed to break even after a puzzlingly timed July release, but that was marketed as a family movie with ghosts, not an actual attempt to scare audiences.
There’s no shortage of new PG-13 horror being released on streaming services, but for young audiences seeking the teenage rite of passage of seeing a horror movie on the big screen, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” was the only game in town.
“Five Night’s at Freddy’s” Capitalized on Multiple Levels of Nostalgia
While FNaF might be a novel property to some film industry observers, the nine-year-old franchise is already old enough for obsessive fans to have aged out of it. The spooky subject matter and (relatively) gentle content has long made the series a gateway drug that leads young fans towards more serious horror films and video game properties.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” arguably hit theaters several years after the games’ cultural heyday, and it’s very possible that older teen and young adult audiences were already nostalgic for it. The film’s success success is comparable to that of “Minions” in 2022, when a viral TikTok trend encouraged groups of teenage and college moviegoers to dress up in suits to attend the Illumination animated sequel. Both movies are evidence that Gen Z audiences are already interested in films that offer them a chance to relive their childhoods.
At the other end of the spectrum, FNaF makes little attempt to hide the fact that its characters and setting are heavily influenced by Chuck E. Cheese restaurants and their creepy-as-hell animatronic characters. While “Five Nights at Freddy’s” targeted a younger audience, iconography that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to parents and older horror fans certainly didn’t hurt.
Halloween Can Still Create Day-and-Date Magic
For all the ways that “Five Nights at Freddy’s” illustrates seismic shifts in the entertainment industry, the film’s success also suggests that some things remain the same. The whopping $78 million domestic haul is made all the more impressive since the film is already streaming on Peacock, a decision that theoretically should have slashed its box-office potential. Maybe that would have been the case if the film opened on a different date, but streaming didn’t kill the excitement of seeing a new horror movie on Halloween weekend.
The viral marketing and established fanbase helped position “Five Nights at Freddy’s” as a genuine piece of event horror. It also hit a perfect sweet spot by targeting a demographic that is often too old to trick-or-treat but too young to drink and engage in more adult Halloween activities. For teenagers looking for Halloween plans, the theatrical release “Five Nights at Freddy’s” became an event in and of itself.
That said, it’s still likely that the film will benefit from dropping on Peacock when as it did. Much of FNaF’s success can be attributed to viral videos of people reacting to the games, and an early streaming release makes it easy for fans and creators to do the same thing with the film.
