It’s been over five years since nerve-shredding survival horror game Five Nights at Freddy’s was first optioned, but news on the project has lately been thin on the ground since it went though various stages of development hell and utterly failed to materialize. However, Blumhouse producer Jason Blum has reassured fans that the adaptation is still very much alive and progressing.
As part of an interview with Fandom, Blum was asked about the movie’s current status, and had this to say:
“I feel like it’s really moving forward. It’s not stalled or anything else. It might seem that way because we haven’t done any announcements about it, but it’s not stalled. It’s moving rapidly forward and I don’t want to put a timeline on it, but soon we’ll get a movie. I really feel confident about it.”
If you’re unaware, the game sees you take on the role of a nighttime security guard at a family restaurant that features a band of robot critters to entertain small children brought in by their parents. Unfortunately for you, they come to life at night since their mechanics seize up if left idle, and if they encounter you your scrawny human form is mistaken for an endoskeleton out of its costume and crammed inside another of the animatronic devices, which naturally does not end well. All you have to defend yourself is a limited supply of electricity to turn on cameras and lights, or bring down the security doors should one of the anthropomorphic beasts get too close.
Although the game takes place entirely in a single small room and its mechanics are simple and straightforward, a backstory can be pieced together from information seen lying around that includes a group of children having been murdered on site and the suggestion that their corpses were stuffed inside the mechanical animals and that their ghosts possess them.
It’s from these details that the movie’s plot will presumably be fashioned, as while the game is satisfyingly unnerving when playing it, watching its events unfold outwith your control have far less of an impact and so the movie will need more than a guy sat in an office for eighty minutes to make it more than just a succession of jump scares.
While Blum’s statement was vague on actual specifics, the lack of any kind of ambiguity over the development still being active bodes well, meaning we might finally be getting the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie sooner rather than later.