Five Nights At Freddy‘s is headed for a huge opening weekend
Josh Hutcherson's animatronic nightmare might not be doing well with critics, but fans are coming out in droves
Aux News Five Nights at Freddy's
Because nobody ever went broke betting on low-budget horror in October—unless, of course, they decided to shell out $400 million for the rights to that low-budget horror, cough, The Exorcist: Believer, cough—Universal and Blumhouse’s Five Nights At Freddy’s is on track to kick quite a bit of ass at the box office this weekend. Starring Josh Hutcherson and a host of creatures out of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop (built on designs from the original, massively popular game franchise), the film is headed toward a hefty $78 million opening weekend—reportedly the biggest Halloween weekend opening, ever, as well as the biggest for a Blumhouse movie. (And the third biggest for a horror movie, period, trailing only behind the two recent It movies, according to THR.)
That’s obviously good news for the studios, given, well, Exorcist: Believer, which did not kick October off with an especially great start for the Universal/Blumhouse team-up. (Believer didn’t do god-awful, actually, tapping out at $112 million—except when you factor in that massive payout for the rights to the franchise.) Interestingly, Five Nights is scoring big money despite launching simultaneously on streaming, landing on the paid tier of Peacock at the same time it hits theaters, apparently drawing in audiences that want to experience PG-13-style horror as a group.
The film is based off of the video game series, created by Scott Cawthon, who co-wrote the script, and executive produces the movie. The film was directed by Emma Tammi, who’s talked a bit this week about the decision to keep the movie tightly to its PG-13 rating—which might help explain how Freddy’s pulled an “A” score from audience-polling service CinemaScore, which normally pulls back hard from horror movies.
8 Comments
I saw it on Peacock and thought it was terrible. I said as much on the internet and was jumped on by some very upset fans who thought it was the greatest thing they’ve ever scene. I wasn’t familiar with the property and it’s rabid following so I guess I should have just kept my mouth shut and let them have their fun. Movie still sucked though.
My theater had a surprisingly high percentage of families with fairly young kids, all of whom seemed to love it. It’s not a good movie but I always enjoy Matthew Lillard, so there’s that.
I had a friend take his kid and some of the kid’s friends to see it. All 10ish years old. They loved every second of it. My friend hated it intensely. Its weird there’s a lot of kid horror that is still very well made and fun for everyone to watch. This one seems to be pretty painful for anyone who isn’t young and really in to the Five Nights brand.
I took my teenage boys to a later showing last night and it was full of older teenager/college age kids, and I’m not gonna lie—I enjoyed it far more than I would have watching it alone. They were very into it, and understood a whole lot of inside jokes/game references that I had no idea about. It wasn’t good by any stretch, and that cop was the most flat-out confusing character I can ever remember seeing in a movie (was she even a cop? was she real? if the answer to either of those is ‘yes’ then I just don’t understand her existence–what kind of life or job could she possibly have).
My local movie theater apparently underestimated the film because they packed us in one of the crummy side theaters opening night (no reclining chairs!) and yet it was still filled to bursting with the young people all super excited for this movie. I had no idea what they were cheering about half the time.
“unless, of course, they decided to shell out $400 million for the rights to that low-budget horror, cough, The Exorcist: Believer, cough”In what workd is The Exorcist a low-budget movie? It was a huge studio movie directed by an Academy Award winner and starring an Academy Award nominated actress.Get your snark right, idiot.
CinemaScore still a very good A−. Guess I can’t be too mad about it having a good opening weekend then, if it’s found its target audience.
It’s a surprise but I bet the international numbers won’t be as good and it will make the majority of its money in the US (it’s usually around 40% for blockbusters).