Five Nights at Freddy’s is a 2023 American supernatural horror film based on the video game series of the same name created by Scott Cawthon. Directed by Emma Tammi, who co-wrote the script with Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback, the film stars Josh Hutcherson with Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Mary Stuart Masterson and Matthew Lillard in supporting roles. Hutcherson plays a troubled security guard working at an abandoned family entertainment center, where he discovers that the animatronic mascots are possessed by homicidal children.
Development of a film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s began in April 2015 under the direction of Warner Bros. Pictures. Roy Lee, David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith were to produce it, and Gil Kenan was announced as director and co-writer. After multiple production delays, Kenan stepped down from the project and Warner Bros. handed off further development of the film to Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions. Chris Columbus was hired to direct and co-write, eventually leaving the project and being replaced by Emma Tammi in October 2022. With a budget of $20 million, filming began in New Orleans and ran from February to April 2023.
Five Nights at Freddy’s was released for streaming on Peacock and theatrically in the United States on October 27, 2023 by Universal Pictures. The film received generally negative reviews from critics, but was a commercial success, becoming Blumhouse’s highest-grossing film worldwide with $291 million
