Five Nights at Freddy's Is Blumhouse's Highest-Grossing Movie

Five Nights at Freddy's spent five weeks at the box office — and now it's Blumhouse's biggest movie ever. Jason Blum announced Monday that the video game adaptation surpassed M. Night Shyamalan's Split to become the studio's highest-grossing movie in its 23-year history. Despite its day-and-date release in theaters and on Peacock, the FNAF movie raked in $136.2 million domestically and $159.3 million internationally, bringing its global box office haul to $295.5 million. Freddy's opened at No. 1 on October 27 with a record-breaking $80 million domestically, giving it the biggest horror opening of 2023 and the second-best opening of all time for a video game movie (behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie's $146.3 million). 

"FNAF is the BIGGEST @blumhouse film of ALL-TIME. Just passed SPLIT," Blum shared on X (formerly Twitter), adding thanks to director and co-writer Emma Tammi, co-writer Scott Cawthon, the movie's New Orleans crew, Universal Pictures, Peacock, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop, who created the animatronic figures of Freddy Fazbear and friends. Blum also extended appreciation to the cast, including Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, Piper Rubio, and Elizabeth Lail.

FNAF is the BIGGEST @blumhouse film of ALL-TIME. Just passed SPLIT. thanks to Emma Tammi, Scott Cawthon, cast & the New Orleans crew, the Henson team, & our partners @universalpics & @peacock.  @jhutch1992, @matthewlillard, @Piperrubios, @elizethdlail

— Jason Blum (@jason_blum) November 27, 2023

Shyamalan's psychological thriller Split — a "stealth sequel" to the Bruce Willis-starring Unbreakable — previously held the record for the highest-grossing Blumhouse movie when it took in $278.5 million at the worldwide box office in 2017. The PG-13 FNAF also scored the best box office over Halloween weekend and the third-biggest horror opening of all time, behind only the two R-rated It movies.

Freddy's is just the sixth Blumhouse movie to surpass $200 million at the box office: 2011's Paranormal Activity 3 was the first to reach the milestone ($207m), followed by Glass ($246m), Jordan Peele's Get Out ($252m), the 2018 Halloween reboot/sequel ($255m), and Split ($278m).

On Halloween, Universal reported that Freddy's became the most-watched Peacock title (film or TV series) of all time in its first five days of release, besting Blumhouse's own Halloween Ends (day-and-date), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (streaming premiere), Bel-Air (TV premiere), and The Best Man: The Final Chapters (TV premiere). Those numbers suggest a Five Nights at Freddy's sequel is likely, with Tammi telling THR that the first movie has "some loose ends that I think are going to have to come back in a sequel to be tied up."

After five weeks in theaters, FNAF fell to ninth place following a slew of new November releases. Lionsgate's The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes stayed on top with $28.8 million, besting Sony's historical epic Napoleon ($20.6m), Disney's animated Wish ($19.5m), Universal's animated musical Trolls Band Together ($17.5m), and Sony's R-rated horror-slasher Thanksgiving ($7m).

The film follows Mike (Hutcherson) a troubled young man caring for his 10-year-old sister Abby (Rubio), and haunted by the unsolved disappearance of his younger brother more than a decade before. Recently fired and desperate for work so that he can keep custody of Abby, Mike agrees to take a position as a night security guard at an abandoned theme restaurant: Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. But Mike soon discovers that nothing at Freddy's is what it seems. With the aid of Vanessa, a local police officer (Lail), Mike's nights at Freddy's will lead him into unexplainable encounters with the supernatural and drag him into the black heart of an unspeakable nightmare.

Five Nights at Freddy's is streaming on Peacock.