"Five Nights at Freddy's" Director Emma Tammi Teases a Secret Character in the Film
"Five Nights at Freddy's" is finally making the leap from the console to the big screen. The video game franchise has long been set to become a horror movie, and director Emma Tammi wants fans of the cult-favorite game to know that the big-screen journey into Freddy Fazbear's Pizza was made especially for them.
Speaking in a panel at New York Comic-Con on Oct. 12, which POPSUGAR was on hand for, Tammi explained that after her first meeting with legendary horror producer Jason Blum about the project, she picked up the game herself and realized it was "a cinematic feast." While noting that "the lore is vast and we couldn't include everything," she said, "Every department . . . was looking for opportunities to make it totally authentic to 'FNAF' and also pull in Easter eggs and pull in little details that we knew were just going to make it rich, and and hopefully every frame of this film has things to unpack and savor throughout." Tammi also teased that there's still another classic character from the game in the movie that hasn't been revealed in any trailer.
She and Blum explained that the animatronics in the film were all done with practical effects and puppets, giving it a lived-in feel. And Blum was explicit about his intention for the movie: he wants it to be for the fans. Speaking about the eight years it took to get the film made, he said, "What we've finally figured out is that we should make a movie that works for the fans. If anyone else comes that's great, but not try and please them, too."
The first "Five Nights at Freddy's" video game was released in 2014. The horror game franchise centers around the Chuck E. Cheese-esque pizza place, where terrifying animatronics come to life. In most of the games, the player is a nighttime employee who must defend themselves when they attack at night. There have been nine games in the core franchise so far.
Back in 2015, the game's creator Scott Cawthon announced that a movie adaption was in the works — though the project hit a number of setbacks over the years, going through a series of directors before Blum took the lead on the project in 2017, per Variety. At Comic-Con, Blum and Tammi emphasized how involved Cawthon was in every stage of production.
Ahead, check out the first trailer for the long-awaited "Five Nights at Freddy's" film and find out what else we know about it so far.
— Additional reporting by Victoria Edel
"Five Nights at Freddy's" Trailer #2
"Five Nights at Freddy's" Trailer #1
"Five Nights at Freddy's" Teaser Trailer
"Five Nights at Freddy's" Plot
"Five Nights at Freddy's" will follow a security guard tasked with taking on the night shift at a haunted pizza parlor and arcade. He faces off against a series of violent robots who love live music as much as they love murder, and who generally kill anyone still in their arcade after midnight.
"Five Nights at Freddy's" Cast
Josh Hutcherson stars as the central, very much out-of-his-depth security guard, Mike Schmidt. Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Kat Conner Sterling, Mary Stuart Masterson, and "Scream" star Matthew Lillard round out the movie's cast.
"Five Nights at Freddy's" Release Date
"Five Nights at Freddy's" will be released on Oct. 27. It'll be in theaters and streaming on Peacock on the same day.