Five Nights at Freddy’s Delivers Biggest-Ever Opening Weekend for Blumhouse

Fans waited quite a long time to see a movie adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s, so they made sure to show out in a big way now that the film is finally here. Blumhouse brought the beloved video game franchise to life with a new live-action film starring Josh Hutcherson, and it was released in theaters this past weekend. Despite also being available to stream on Peacock, Five Nights at Freddy’s was a massive success at the box office. Believe it or not, Five Nights at Freddy’s actually delivered the biggest opening weekend ever for Blumhouse as a studio.

Five Nights at Freddy’s opened to a whopping $130 million worldwide, which is quite a lot for a film that only cost around $20 million to make. Previously, the biggest-ever worldwide box office opening for a Blumhouse film belonged to 2018’s Halloween, which took in $91.8 million in its first frame. While Halloween is part of a long-lasting horror franchise, it was also an R-rated film, meaning that it was available to a smaller audience.

This weekend also marks the 19th time a Blumhouse movie as opened as the number one film at the domestic box office. Five Nights at Freddy’s is just the latest example of the studio hitting a home run with a modest-budget horror film.

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.