Jason Blum Shares Dead by Daylight Movie Update, Compares Process to Five Nights at Freddy’s

Behaviour Interactive announced last year plans for a Dead by Daylight movie made in partnership with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse company and James Wan’s Atomic Monster. The Dead by Daylight movie is already in good hands then just by being associated with those two names, but since last year, we’ve heard precious little about the plans for the adaptation. During New York Comic-Con, ComicBook caught up with Blum and got an update from the Blumhouse founder on the Dead by Daylight movie who said that everyone’s still working on a script while comparing the adaptation process to the work that went into Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s movie.

“Working on the script,” he said when asked if there was any update to be shared on the Dead by Daylight movie. “You know, we don’t put movies in the calendar until we have the right script.”

For those who might be impatient about hearing more on the Dead by Daylight movie, Blum used the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie adaptation as an example of how long these things sometimes take. The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was in the works in some form or another for nearly a decade before it released and even changed hands from Warner Bros. to Blumhouse during that process before it finally released in 2023. The movie performed well with Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 fans even if critics weren’t as fond of it, and another one is on the way, so the time spent cooking up the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was apparently worth it.

“It took 10 years to make Five Nights at Freddy’s, and I think one of the reasons the movie worked is because we spent 10 years trying to get it right,” he said.

Returning back to Dead by Daylight, he said he hopes that those working on the movie get a script that they’re in love with, but he said broadly it could take anywhere from a year to five years.

“I hope we get a script that we love,” he said. “We’re working on a script, but it could be five years, it could be 12 months. You just don’t know. You can’t make the movie until the script is right, and you don’t know how long that’ll take.”

When the Dead by Daylight movies was first announced, it was said that the search was underway for a director and screenwriter. Nobody has been confirmed for those roles since then, so aside from Blum, Wan, and executive producers from their companies and Behaviour Interactive, no other names are attached to the film currently.

Dead by Daylight is in the midst of one of its biggest events of the year since we’re right around Halloween, so Behaviour Interactive still has plenty to do with the game itself while work continues on the movie. More DLC is on the way, too, including one for none other than Five Nights at Freddy’s that’s releasing next year.

This weekend, Blumhouse launched its Shop Blumhouse online store full of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. You can find it at here.