Five Nights At Freddy's Is Scaring Up An Incredible Opening Weekend At The Box Office
"Five Nights at Freddy's" movie is scaring up an incredible storm at the box office.
After months of anticipation, Blumhouse's long-awaited adaptation of the hit "Five Nights at Freddy's" video game has finally hit cinemas and Peacock. Despite a day-and-date release from distributor Universal Pictures, the PG-13 horror pic is on track to have a seismic opening weekend with a haul of $78 million, per Deadline. Initial projections had the spookfest at $50 million-plus — a perfectly adequate number for a film set to debut on streaming. However, with a lack of significant competition at the horror box office and rapturous demand from fans, the Blumhouse film is beating projections with grace. Considering the film packs a $20 million budget, a $78 million total easily puts it in a perfectly healthy position — making "Five Nights at Freddy's" another major win for Blumhouse this year.
With such an incredible opening weekend debut, it will be interesting to see just how soon Blumhouse and Universal announce the inevitable sequel, which isn't out of the wheelhouse of the multi-media franchise. After all, there are over a dozen of video games in the "Five Nights at Freddy's" franchise and plenty of supplementary material, giving the creatives behind the latest horror juggernaut plenty of content to adapt.
As strong as these opening weekend numbers are, it will be interesting to see if the film maintains its momentum in the coming weeks — if not days. While the project is no doubt frontloaded, it's possible (though not certain) that negative reviews and more awareness surrounding the Peacock release will lead to a warm sophomore weekend.
Fans are showing up in droves to support Freddy
Ever since the "Five Nights at Freddy's" video game franchise debuted in the early 2010s, Hollywood studios have been eager to milk the animatronic cow. After years of being stuck in development, director Emma Tammi was brought on board to helm the pic. While speaking with ComingSoon.net, she opened up about how they consulted with Scott Cawthon — the mastermind behind the franchise — to create an authentic adaptation of the video game. Tammi described the collaborative experience as "really really helpful 'cause he was really pivotal in helping us figure out exactly what elements of the world we were gonna include in this game."
And thanks to Cawthon's work on the film, "Five Nights at Freddy's" is a winner amongst fans and general audiences. As of this writing, the pic's Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 89%, and it scored a highly commendable A- CinemaScore. This is an unusually high number for a horror film — this year's highest-grossing horror flicks, "Scream VI" and "M3GAN," boast B+ and B scores, respectively. Despite positive feedback from fans, "Five Nights at Freddy's" is far from being a critical juggernaut. Looper critic Alistair Ryder tore the film apart in a 3/10 review, arguing that the film fails at being both scary and funny. As of this writing, the film sports a 25% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rating.
But poor reviews didn't stop fan momentum, as "Five Nights at Freddy's" had north of $10 million in Thursday previews and a Friday haul just shy of $40 million. It's possible that the film will cross the $78 million number and open at $80 million, making it one of the best horror debuts of the year.
Global sales and the road ahead
Internationally, "Five Nights at Freddy's" is another major winner, with Deadline estimating a $52 million foreign haul. That total, with the $78 million domestic projection, has the picture opening at $130 million worldwide — far higher than what Blumhouse's very own "The Exorcist: Believer" was able to conjure up worldwide over the last month. If Peacock and poor reviews don't impact the film, Freddy and his friends could replicate the domestic run of "John Wick: Chapter 4," which opened to a similar $70 million number in early March, grossing shy of $190 million.
It cannot be understated how massive of a win the "Five Nights at Freddy's" opening weekend is. Even if the film doesn't hit $80 million in debut receipts, the spooky outing is already on track to be Blumhouse's biggest opening, besting the $76 million haul 2017's "Halloween" scooped up. This weekend also confirms another thing: Video games will continue to be the next IP-riddled medium that Hollywood mines. After the billion-dollar success of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" (also a Universal pic), it's obvious that every exec in Hollywood is trying to find their next payday with the medium.
Now, all eyes are on the sophomore weekend. While hardcore fans are no doubt paying visits to their local multiplexes, the fandom will run dry, and it will be interesting to see if general audiences show up in the coming days. Or maybe, they'll stream the film on Peacock — no word yet on how well the film is doing on the Universal-backed platform.