I really want this movie to be good. I love the FNAF (Five Nights at Freddy’s) series, and I have since I was 10. But based on outside factors, I don’t think it’s going to be as good as people make it out to be. There’s a lot of hype around this movie, and there has been for a long time, and that’s part of the issue.
Production: The movie was originally announced in 2015. However, although it was announced to be coming out, the movie was never made. The studio, Warner Bros., was also working on the new version of It (never made), and a Beetlejuice sequel (also never made) during that time. The movie was officially dropped by Warner Bros. in 2017 after a script was never solidified.
In 2018, another script was made. This one was fairly well received by everyone in the production team, except for one crucial member — Scott Cawthorn. He was the creator of the games, and the creative team couldn’t make a move without him.
2021- Filming is announced to begin in the springtime, but again the script is trashed until 2022, when it finally was ready. Cawthorn is happy with the script, and a new director has been hired. The movie was finally being made, nearly 10 years after the first game was released in 2014.
Now, good movies can come out of tricky production issues. Some of the highest acclaimed movies experienced production issues, such as Jaws or The Emperor’s New Groove. But not every movie can achieve greatness, and let’s be serious; it’s FNAF.
The Red Eyes Controversy: When the official trailer for the film released, there was a glaring problem: the animatronics had red eyes. The red eyes weren’t something in the games at all — in fact the colour of eyes have been historically important to game fans. One of the crew members in the movie spoke out about the controversy, saying, “watch the movie, it’s explained!!!!” via. Instagram.
One might beg the question — how far has the movie strayed from the original work? Despite Cawthorn working on the movie, we don’t know what has been changed or added to the story, and as some people love to say, “The book is always better.”
The Horror Style: Five Night’s at Freddy’s is built on jump scare horror. There are other aspects of horror within the game, but the main core of it ll is jump scares. Jump scares can be done in moderation within a good movie, but if every scare is Freddy Fazbear jumping at the audience like they do in the games, I’m not sure if the horror part of this horror movie will movie out of b-movie status.
The Cast: I’m going to be whittling down the cast for speaking about it. I’m not going to be talking about the puppeteers, the actors for the animatronics, or the child actors (including the ghost kids).
Most of the actors don’t have very many horror movie credits, or don’t have a big enough part for it to matter. The only exception is Matthew Lillard, who has been in quite a few horror movies, including cult-classic slashers. But, most of his credits come from children’s shows and movies.
I’m not saying that having inexperience in the horror genre makes a person a bad horror actor. Nicolas Cage, for instance hadn’t played many parts in a horror film, yet when he starred in FNAF knockoff, Willy’s Wonderland, he played the part excellently. But, like I said with the production issues, not everything can make it big.
The Knockoffs: There are two main knockoffs to the FNAF movie: Willy’s Wonderland (2021) and The Banana Splits (2019). Both of these movies do have connections to the FNAF movie. While Willy’s was just inspired by the franchise itself, The Banana Splits was an old script for the movie.
What if because of the lengthy production time, fans of the franchise are now tired of seeing the same movie over and over again, especially since the movies were still released fairly recently.
Ending Note: I want this movie to be good, and I’m hoping that it’s one of the few that pulls itself through the rubble and keeps going strong, William Afton-style. But there’s so much uneasiness around it that it has a big chance of flopping. If you want more information on some of the things I talked about, here’s a few links:
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4589218/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5Q0sEeYNU4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNC0L3Z49qA
