The Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNaF) movie has been one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year ever since it was announced. The film is based off of the FNaF horror video game series, which was one of the most influential and popular games of its time even before the movie was released. The movie was co-produced by Blumhouse Productions and Universal Studios and released on Friday, Oct. 27, to extremely high demand.
According to the New York Times, the movie, which had a budget of only $20 million, brought in roughly $78 million over its opening weekend in the United States and Canada alone. The movie also proved to be an international success, bringing in about $53 million overseas in its first weekend. The movie was likewise released on streaming service Peacock. NBCUniversal, owners of Peacock, reported that the film was the most watched piece of content on the service over the weekend, and that it was projected to be the most watched film ever on Peacock.
Due to the massive box office success, the film broke many domestic, international, and global box office records. Variety states that the film, which wasn’t expected to do well by critics, broke over 10 different records in the first week of its release. Some of the notable records broken include “biggest opening weekend for a horror film of 2023” and “best debut ever for a PG-13 horror film.” In total, the film broke nine domestic records, one international record, and two global records. The movie also became Blumhouse Productions’ highest-grossing film ever.
Despite the success in the box office, the movie was heavily criticized and poorly rated. Forbes wrote that the FNaF movie had a large gap between critics’ reviews and fan reviews. On popular rating site Rotten Tomatoes, the movie got a 28 percent critic score, and an 89 percent fan score. On another popular site, Metacritic, the movie received a 3.3/10 critic score, while fans rated it an 8.1/10 film. A leading contributor to the large gap in reviews is the audience the FNaF movie was made for. The film was made for fans of the video game series, which makes it more understandable why movie critics rated it so poorly. The low reviews don’t reflect the excitement and enjoyment of the FNaF fans, who had waited years for a movie about the game to be released.
Thus, the FNaF movie is a film that broke records and racked in cash by being based on a large pop culture icon, despite the heavy criticism.
