Sit in your chair and get your flashlight ready for your new job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria! The viral horror video game, Five Nights at Freddy’s, has decided to take the big screen! The announcement of the movie has had fans bursting with excitement, considering that this project has been in the works for over ten years. 

Background

Five Nights at Freddy’s, which is commonly referred to as FNAF, is a point-and-click indie horror game that was first released back in 2014 by Scott Cawthon. Prior to Five Nights at Freddy’s, Scott Cawthon had made numerous indie games without much success. Five Nights at Freddy’s was supposed to be his final game, but that obviously was not the case. The game began to rapidly gain attention and notoriety from people all around the world, developing a passionate fan base along the way. The newborn hype around his game led to Cawthon making more installments of the franchise.

During the year 2015, Cawthon, and an additional author named Kira Breed-Wrisley, released the first book adaptation of the series with a book titled, The Silver Eyes. He later went on to make two sequels to the book: The Twisted Ones, published in 2017 and The Fourth Closet, published in 2018. Cawthon also contributed to the creation of a book series called Fazbear Frights that started back in 2019. These books contain three stories that relate to the games yet have little to no relevance in the overarching story and lore of the games. 

Movie Adaptation

This year, the movie adaptation of the Five Nights of Freddy’s series has finally come out. It was officially available for screens on October 27 and was directed by Emma Tammi. The movie follows a security guard named Micheal who is played by actor Josh Hutcherson. His character is not unlike the protagonist in the games, a security guard who is attempting to survive five nights in a horror-filled establishment. The movie follows the game’s storyline closely, but there are a few differences that have been noticed by watchers.

With the release of the movie, fans have had multiple different views and opinions on it. Many fans have agreed that to understand the facility of the movie, you would have to understand what Five Nights at Freddy’s is in the first place. A large majority of individuals feel as if the movie accomplished just about everything it needed to, and that it was a good movie in general; however, they criticized particular aspects of the movie. Many other fans didn’t find it enjoyable at all. “It was a really good spiritual adaptation of the games, but it was not consistent with lore at all,” Anniston Shultz, a fan of the franchise stated.  

 The storyline of the movie doesn’t quite add up with the storyline of the game. Most details fans think they know about the games are mostly just a whole lot of theories fans have come up with. “Because the lore of the games is so up to interpretation, the movie is honestly perfectly canonical,” Anniston explained. The movie interpretation is perfectly acceptable since there is no actual confirmation of what fans have created; there is nothing to verify the true story of the games in the first place. Nothing will probably ever actually be confirmed about Five Nights at Freddy’s due to the creator retiring.

Another important aspect about the movie is that it is known to be the last and final project of Cawthon. Scott Cawthon left the path of game development on June 16, 2021. Scott made sure to let fans know that this was not the end for his franchise, just the end games developed by him. Before retiring Scott had a few more projects in the works that still needed to be released like the newest game in the series, Security Breach.

Ultimately, the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was definitely something that fans appreciated and was a great way to bring the franchise to the big screen. This movie might have taken some time but, it was worth the wait to see this franchise take on a new form of media. Five Night at Freddy’s has been through multiple forms of media and has been enjoyable for fans everywhere. Scott will not be forgotten–even in retirement–for all his hard work to make fans able to have a fun time.