Fight Nights at Freddy's: Jason Blum Reveals Why Film Adaptation Took So Long

Five Nights at Freddy's producer Jason Blum has revealed why the film took so long to make. Five Nights at Freddy's is one of the most popular gaming horror franchises out there. It managed to capture a sizable audience because unlike something like Resident Evil or Silent Hill, it's not absurdly gory and traumatic. It's horror, but in a way that a broader audience including young teens can experience. It also blew up on YouTube as creators began playing the game and having explosive reactions to the franchise's signature jump scares. One would've thought that Hollywood would've capitalized on the success much sooner, but things aren't that simple.

The first murmurs of a film based on the games began in 2015 when Warner Bros. acquired the rights to the series. After that, there were a ton of other developments from different directors, writers, and more all coming in and trying to get the movie off of the ground. It wasn't really until 2022 when things started to actually turn around and the movie started to come to life. During a New York Comic-Con panel, Blumhouse exec and Five Nights at Freddy's movie producer spoke on why the film took so long.

"One of the reasons which will be interesting to you guys, why the movie took so long is that Hollywood [is that] sometimes, not always, it makes the mistake when they're adapting like a super popular book or a super popular game to start out at the very beginning to make a movie that not only will satisfy the fans of the book or the game, but bring a larger audience," said Blum. "There's always that pressure to bring a larger audience. One of the reasons this movie took so long to do is [because that's] how we started to [develop it] and but what became clear through the development process is that the only way to pull this off was to make the movie for fans of Five Nights at Freddy's and if anyone else came, fine. What Emma did so well and what we've what we 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."

As of right now, we'll have to see how that strategy plays out. On a commercial level, it likely won't matter as Five Nights at Freddy's has already made its budget back before the film has even released. Of course, we have no idea how it will be received critically, but hopefully it turns out well and fans can point to it as yet another successful video game adaptation.