It's Clear Now Why Five Nights At Freddy's Killed At The Box Office
After spending nearly a decade in development hell, the "Five Nights at Freddy's" movie finally hit theaters, and it was the third biggest opening weekend ever for a horror movie. What went so right for this long-in-the-works video game film?
Transcript
00:00 After spending nearly a decade in development hell, the Five Nights at Freddy's movie finally
00:05 hit theaters, and it was the third biggest opening weekend ever for a horror movie.
00:10 What went so right for this long-in-the-works video game film?
00:13 The Halloween season needs a big horror movie every year to give people something spooky
00:17 to watch in theaters.
00:19 Moviegoers want to have that communal experience during the year's scariest holiday, and Five
00:23 Nights at Freddy's filled that hole this year.
00:26 The other big-name horror flicks were already released earlier in the season, with The Nun
00:30 2, Saw X, and The Exorcist Believer all hitting theaters within the last handful of weeks.
00:36 They've all run out of gas at this point, which cleared the path for Freddy's.
00:39 "Welcome to Freddy's.
00:40 Have you met them yet?"
00:43 This one may seem obvious to those who are in on it, but it cannot be overstated enough
00:47 in light of what happened over the film's opening weekend.
00:50 Five Nights at Freddy's is an absurdly popular video game series.
00:53 The games became a total sensation online over the last decade, with YouTuber Markiplier's
00:58 playthrough video from 2014 boasting 114 million views.
01:03 "Uh oh.
01:04 Oh, oh no.
01:05 Oh no, no, no, no, no, no."
01:07 That is but one example, as there are countless other Freddy's videos with millions of views,
01:12 not to mention how many copies of the games have been sold over the years.
01:16 There are also tie-in novels, toys, and a shocking amount of lore for people to dive
01:20 into.
01:21 While the franchise has been wildly huge for years, and it's one people enjoy obsessively,
01:25 the movie was just the next logical step.
01:28 The most important metric when looking at the success this movie has enjoyed is the
01:32 demographics, specifically young moviegoers.
01:35 A staggering 81 percent of people who saw Five Nights at Freddy's in theaters on opening
01:39 weekend were younger than 25, according to Box Office Pro.
01:43 This simply doesn't happen.
01:44 Yes, young people go to the movies, but for a movie to be so heavily favored by younger
01:48 viewers is close to unheard of, particularly in the modern era.
01:52 Much has been made of the decision to go with a PG-13 rating, but that clearly allowed a
01:57 lot of 17 and younger moviegoers to boost the ticket sales.
02:00 Blumhouse catered to the correct audience, and that audience turned out in droves.
02:05 No doubt about it, horror is the most consistent genre at the box office right now.
02:10 In 2023, we've seen more superhero flops than hits, with films like The Flash tanking badly.
02:16 Superheroes are no longer the presumed dominant force theatrically.
02:19 "Enjoy your life.
02:20 Do you.
02:21 Change literally nothing.
02:22 I'll see you again never."
02:24 But studio-produced horrors in theaters, meanwhile, has only suffered a few true misfires.
02:29 In the case of something like Renfield, that had more to do with the budget than anything
02:33 else.
02:34 Five Nights at Freddy's capitalized on the fever for the genre right now, and specifically,
02:38 it gave young folks a horror movie to embrace for the Halloween season.
02:42 This is what can happen when horror catches the right wave at the right time.
02:46 Last but not least, we must address the Blumhouse of it all.
02:50 The house that Jason Blum built has been the most consistent name in genre filmmaking over
02:54 the last 20 years, dating back to Paranormal Activity.
02:58 Blumhouse is a name that horror fans have come to trust.
03:00 The fact that they were able to put stuff like "From the studio that brought you Megan
03:04 and the black phone in the trailers" certainly doesn't hurt anything, but that's just the
03:09 tip of the iceberg.
03:10 We're also talking about the studio responsible for franchises like The Purge, Insidious,
03:15 Happy Death Day, and the most recent Halloween trilogy.
03:18 Then, we also have hits like Get Out, Split, and The Invisible Man.
03:23 Blumhouse's track record speaks for itself at this point.
03:26 Much like A24 has built a reputation for lovers of indie film and auteur cinema, Blumhouse
03:31 has become the go-to horror hitmaker in Hollywood.
03:34 It's undeniable at this point that having that name attached to your movie helps matters.
03:39 Does Blumhouse always make big hits?
03:41 No.
03:42 The ones that hit do hit very hard, and those are the ones that stick in the minds of the
03:47 movie-going masses.
03:48 The hits far outweigh the misses, and that has earned the studio a certain level of credibility.
03:54 Five Nights at Freddy's is in theaters now.
03:56 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:59 (upbeat music)