Five Nights at Freddy’s Impresses With $7 Million Preview Night at Box Office

The long-awaited film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s is getting off to a great start at the box office. Blumhouse’s latest film, based on the ultra-successful video game franchise, hit theaters on Thursday evening to along with its simultaneous day-and-date release on the Peacock streaming service. Despite being available on Peacock at 8pm ET on Thursday night, Five Nights at Freddy’s still showed up to the box office in a big way for its previews.

According to Deadline, Five Nights at Freddy’s preview screenings on Thursday night are “north of $7 million,” which would be a great start to the weekend for the film. That said, the same report indicates that the box office will be frontloaded for Five Nights at Freddy’s, meaning that the biggest audiences will appear earlier in the weekend and so the pace may slow by the time Sunday rolls around.

Still, the PG-13 horror film is showing promise for Blumhouse, outpacing the studio’s previous day-and-date horror releases on Peacock. Halloween Kills scored $4.85 million in previews on its way to a $49.4 million opening weekend, while Halloween Ends had $5.4 million in previews but just $40 million overall at the box office that weekend. Five Nights at Freddy’s is currently tracking for a $50 million opening weekend, though some estimates think it could be even higher. $7 million on Thursday night will go a long way toward reaching that goal.

Five Nights at Freddy’s PG-13 Rating

While some had hoped that the Five Nights at Freddy’s adaptation would lean more towards an R-rating, the studio and filmmakers were adamant about keeping it PG-13 so it would be accessible to younger fans.

“We knew that some of the fan base would want an R-rated version of this film,” director Emma Tammi recently told Forbes. “On the one level, we wanted to be inclusive of the younger audiences and knew we were going to hit the PG-13 rating, but for the audience that also wanted that level of violence, if you will, or at least insinuation of violence, we really wanted to still include elements that felt dark.”

“Of course, there are a lot of dark elements to see in the lore, but in terms of some of the kills and everything, it was just all execution dependent. We really wanted to ensure that we were showing the right amount and doing creative things to insinuate what was happening or show what was happening without fully seeing it to still fit in that PG-13 category.” 

Five Nights at Freddy’s is now playing in theaters and is available to stream on Peacock.