Five Nights at Freddy's

CAN YOU SURVIVE

***Five Nights at Freddy's*** is a 2023 American supernatural horror film directed by Emma Tammi from a screenplay she co-wrote with Scott Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback. Produced by Blumhouse Productions and Striker Entertainment, it is based on the video game franchise of the same name created by Cawthon, who also serves as producer with Jason Blum. The film stars Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio and Matthew Lillard.

Development of a *Five Nights at Freddy's* film adaptation began in April 2015, with the involvement of Warner Bros. Pictures. Roy Lee, David Katzenberg, and Seth Grahame-Smith were set to produce it, with Gil Kenan announced as director and co-writer. After several delays in production, the Warner Bros. version was no longer moving forward and Kenan dropped out of the project. In March 2017, Blumhouse Productions was announced as new production company, with Chris Columbus set to direct and co-write. Columbus also ultimately left the project, and Emma Tammi was announced as his replacement in October 2022. The main cast were confirmed in December, while other cast additions were signed in March 2023. Filming began in New Orleans on February 1, and wrapped on April 3, 2023.

*Five Nights at Freddy's* was theatrically released on October 27, 2023, by Universal Pictures; it was also simultaneously released on Peacock the same day. The film received generally negative reviews from critics, who criticized its slow pace, underutilization of the animatronics, and lack of scares.

## Premise

Mike Schmidt, a troubled security guard, accepts a night-time job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a once-successful abandoned family entertainment center, where he discovers its four animatronic mascots – Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy – move and kill anyone that is still there after midnight.

## Plot

Mike Schmidt, a mall cop, loses his job after assaulting a negligent father who he confused for being a kidnapper. He is sent to visit career counselor Steve Raglan, who offers him work as a night guard at an abandoned family diner known as Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Though initially reluctant, Mike accepts the offer after social services threaten to take custody of his younger sister Abby, and pass her over to his estranged aunt Jane, due to concerns of Mike's emotional stress.

On the first night, Mike falls asleep and has a dream where he witnesses the kidnapping and presumed murder of his brother Garrett, whom was taken away by an unknown man. Mike is then met by five unknown children whom allegedly witnessed the kidnapping, and promptly run away. On the second night, Mike meets police officer Vanessa Shelly, who shows him around the restaurant and tells him that the place closed in the 1980s after five children were murdered there; the bodies were never found. Mike's dream is repeated, though after Mike attempts to confront one of the children, he is attacked and wakes up to find himself wounded physically, though his wounds are treated by Vanessa.

On the third night, Jane hires a group of delinquents to vandalize the restaurant in order to get Mike fired, an act which would enable her to gain custody of Abby. As the break-in occurs, the restaurant's animatronic mascots - Freddy Fazbear, Chica, Foxy and Bonnie - come alive and murder the delinquents. One of the vandals happens to be Abby's babysitter, which requires Mike to bring Abby to his next shift. The animatronics become active once more, being hostile towards Mike though being friendly towards Abby. The animatronics befriend her, though Vanessa and Mike are hesitant, with the latter discovering that the animatronics are possessed by the ghosts of dead children, whom are led by a boy with blonde hair and allegedly talk about a "yellow rabbit" consistently.

Inbetween shifts, Mike explains the disappearance of Garrett when he was young, which became a cold case and that he had been taking sleeping pills every night in order to repeat his dreams and find who kidnapped his brother. After panicking from Abby's increasing relationship with the animatronics on the fourth night, Vanessa warns Mike to not bring her to the restaurant again. Mike gets Jane to babysit Abby, much to her frustration, as he goes back to the restaurant during the day and overdoses on his sleeping pills.

Inside the dream, the five children appear again and tell Mike that he can stay with Garrett forever, in exchange for Abby. At Mike's house, Jane is murdered by "Golden Freddy", a variant of Freddy Fazbear possessed by the blonde boy, who takes Abby back to the restaurant. Mike is attacked several times inside of his dream and wakes up strapped to a torture device that attempts to tear off his face. He escapes the machine and flees the restaurant, but is critically injured until Vanessa arrives to help him.

After Mike details his dream, Vanessa reveals that she is the daughter of the serial killer that murdered his brother and the other five children, William Afton, and that the animatronics and souls of the children are under his control. She also tells him that they will likely attempt to murder Abby, much to Mike's dismay. He drives to the restaurant with the necessary equipment to disable the animatronics and save Abby, who is taken into a backroom by Chica. Chica tries to kill Abby by stuffing her inside of an animatronic suit with springlocks, though Mike disables most of the animatronics and saves Abby. However, he is attacked by Chica's cupcake and is separated from Abby, who is attacked by Foxy but is saved by Vanessa. Both animatronics are defeated, but as the group try to leave the restaurant, William, revealed to have been posing as "Steve Raglan" and having murdered Garrett, appears wearing the now decaying Spring Bonnie suit and knocks Mike unconscious and reenables the animatronics.

Knowing that they need to understand the truth, Abby begins drawing a picture of William murdering the children, while Vanessa distracts and shoots him but is afterwards stabbed. Abby shows her drawing to the animatronics, causing them to turn on William. Surrounded by the pizzeria's main mascots, part of his suit gets bitten off by the cupcake animatronic, triggering the springlock machinery inside of it and crushing his body as he is dragged into the back room of the restaurant and locked away. Mike and Abby carry a wounded Vanessa out of the restaurant, though she falls into a coma afterwards and is taken to a hospital. Mike continues to look after Abby and they return to their normal lives.

In a mid-credits scene, Golden Freddy watches as the dying William bleeds out in the corner, closing the door on him soon after. In a post-credits scene, Balloon Boy is shown appearing inside a taxi driver’s car.

## Cast

### Actors

* Josh Hutcherson as Mike Schmidt, a new security guard at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.
	+ Wyatt M. Parker as Young Mike

* Elizabeth Lail as Vanessa Shelly, a local police officer.
	+ Emma Jo Tassin as Young Vanessa

* Matthew Lillard as Steve Raglan/William Afton, Mike's career counselor and co-founder of Fazbear Entertainment.
* Kat Conner Sterling as Max, Abby's babysitter.
* Piper Rubio as Abby Schmidt, Mike's younger sister.
* Mary Stuart Masterson as Aunt Jane, Mike and Abby's aunt.
* David Lind as Jeff, the leader of a gang of juvenile delinquents.
* Christian Stokes as Hank, a member of Jeff's gang.
* Joseph Poliquin as Carl, a member of Jeff's gang.
* Grant Feely as Ghost Kid (Blonde Boy), the murdered child whose soul haunts Golden Freddy.
* Asher Colton Spence as Ghost Kid (With Hook), the murdered child whose soul haunts Foxy.
* David Houston Doty as Ghost Kid (With Bunny Ears), the murdered child whose soul haunts Bonnie.
* Liam Hendrix as Ghost Kid (With Hat), the murdered child whose soul haunts Freddy Fazbear.
* Jophielle Love as Ghost Kid (Blue-Eyed Girl), the murdered child whose soul haunts Chica.
* Tadasay Young as Dr. Lillian.
* Michael P. Sullivan as Doug, Aunt Jane's clumsy lawyer.
* Lucas Grant as Garrett, Mike's younger brother who was abducted as a child.
* Theodus Crane as Jeremiah, Mike's previous co-worker.
* MatPat as Sparky's Diner waiter.
* CoryxKenshin as a cabbie.

### Animatronics

* Kevin Foster as Freddy Fazbear, the restaurant's namesake brown bear mascot.
* Jade-Kindar Martin as Bonnie, an indigo rabbit mascot.
* Jess Weiss as Chica, a yellow chicken mascot.
* Roger Joseph Manning Jr. as Foxy, a red pirate fox mascot, sings throughout the film, is performed by Kellen Goff.
* Jade Hassouné as Golden Freddy
* Dylan Hoerner as Balloon Boy

## Appearances

### Locations

Pizzaria

Houses

### Items

*flashlight*

*Monitor*

*Knife*

*Springlocks*

*microphone*

*guitar*

*cupcake*

### Vehicles

*Cars*

*Taxi*

### Sentient Species

* Humans
* Animatronics

## Production

### Development

In April 2015, Warner Bros. Pictures announced it had acquired the film rights to the *Five Nights at Freddy's* video game franchise with Roy Lee, David Katzenberg, and Seth Grahame-Smith set to produce the adaptation. Grahame-Smith stated that they would collaborate with franchise creator Scott Cawthon "to make an insane, terrifying and weirdly adorable movie". In July 2015, Gil Kenan signed to direct the film from a screenplay co-written with Tyler Burton Smith.

In March 2017, Cawthon tweeted announcing Blumhouse Productions as the film's new production company after Warner Bros. Pictures put the project in turnaround. In May 2017, producer Jason Blum said he was excited and working closely with Cawthon on the film. In June 2017, Kenan said he was no longer directing the film.

In February 2018, Chris Columbus was announced as Kenan's replacement as director and writer, besides producing the film alongside Blum and Cawthon. In August 2018, Cawthon revealed that the first draft of the film's script, which he wrote with co-author of the *Five Nights at Freddy's* novel trilogy, Kira Breed-Wrisley, was completed, and it would involve the events of the series' first game. That same month, Blum wrote on Twitter that the film was aiming for a 2020 release. In November, Cawthon announced that he scrapped the script, despite being liked by Columbus and Blum, as he "had a different idea for [the story], one that I liked better". It contributed to a further delay to the film, which Cawthon took full responsibility. In June 2020, during an interview with Fandom, Blum, when asked about the progress of the film, stated:

> "It's super active, so I really feel like we have a very good shot at seeing a *Five Nights at Freddy's* movie...I feel like it's really moving forward; it's not stalled or anything else. It's moving forward rapidly. I don't want to put a timeline on it, but soon we'll get a movie. I feel really confident about that."
>
>

In September 2021, Blum revealed that Columbus was no longer involved with the project, but it was still in active development. In August 2022, Blum announced that Jim Henson's Creature Shop would be working on the animatronic characters for the film. In October, Emma Tammi was announced as Columbus' replacement as director, in addition to co-writing the screenplay alongside Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback.

### Casting

In December 2022, Josh Hutcherson and Matthew Lillard joined the cast as undisclosed roles. *Five Nights at Freddy's*-related YouTuber Dawko later revealed during a livestream that Hutcherson would portray the first game's security guard Mike Schmidt and Lillard would portray the franchise's main villain William Afton. He also revealed that Mary Stuart Masterson and Piper Rubio joined the cast as an undisclosed female villain and Schmidt's younger sister Abby, respectively. In March 2023, it was reported that Kat Conner Sterling and Elizabeth Lail were cast in the film. Lucas Grant and Jessica Blackmore have undisclosed roles.

Mark Fischbach was contacted to have a role in the film, but turned it down due to a conflicting schedule with his own film *Iron Lung*, though Cawthon stated in the comments of his livestream that he would love for Fischbach to have the role in the second film.

### Filming

Principal photography was initially set to begin in March 2021. However, due to script issues, filming was delayed. Filming began in New Orleans on February 1, 2023, under the working title *Bad Cupcake*, with an estimated production budget (before tax incentives) of $25 million, and wrapped on April 3. Lillard began filming his scenes in mid-February.