The new “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie is a box office hit, breaking records for horror movies. As of No. 9, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” has grossed a worldwide total of $224.8 million according to Box Office Mojo.
The film adaptation of the popular horror game series of the same name was estimated to earn $78 million on it’s opening weekend, in which it ended up debuting to $80 million in America and $132 million globally, according to Variety.
The film also became the highest grossing opening weekend for Blumhouse Productions, surpassing their rendition of “Halloween” in 2018.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s,” which has been highly anticipated by fans, not only surpassed expectations at the box office.
The film, which made $10.3 million from Thursday night previews, generated the biggest-ever gross from a simultaneous streaming release. On opening weekend, the horror movie had the second best simultaneous streaming release, behind 2021’s “Black Widow”, which grossed $80.3 million its opening weekend according to Deadline. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” was also the second highest opening for a video game movie in history, behind “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in April also according to Deadline.
“It’s no surprise,” said NECC student and Art and Design major Alli Palumbo, “Five Nights at Freddy’s is super popular and has tons of fans.”
“Five Nights at Freddys,” which stars Josh Hutcherson and Matthew Lillard, follows Mike Schmidt, a nighttime security guard at an abandoned family entertainment center, Freddy Fazbears Pizza.
However, he discovers the restaurant is overrun by deadly animatronics. The film is based on a series of video games, which have become wildly successful and have amassed a large fan base.
A movie version of the game series has reportedly been in the works since 2015, but got delayed for various reasons, according to Blumhouse Productions.
“The movie was really enjoyable,” said former NECC student Kate Cahill, “I liked it a lot.”
However, despite its success at the box office, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” received mostly negative reviews from critics.
Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a 30%, with reviews averaging the movie 4.5/10.
Other critics, including some from The Guardian and The New York Times gave the movie a 2/5, and expressed their distaste in the lack of thrills and no genuine laughs.
Many critics also criticized the movie for the PG-13 rating.
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Times stated that “the premise very likely would’ve made more sense as a straight-up R-rated splatter fest.”
However, despite negative reviews, audiences seemed to love “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” giving the film an 89% on Rotton Tomatoes and an 8.1 on Metacritic.
The film had one of the biggest critic-audience gaps ever and is almost triple to score given by critics.
“The movie was made for fans,” Palumbo added, “The critics were not fans and didn’t understand it.”
“Five Nights at Freddy’s released in theatres on Oct. 27, and is now streaming on Peacock.
