The first Five Nights at Freddy’s video game came out in August 2014, and in the following year, efforts to make a film adaptation began. The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie has been set up at Blumhouse Productions since 2017, and following years of delays and setbacks, this project has finally been making some major progress. In fact, today brings word that Five Nights at Freddy’s has recruited some major Scream and Hunger Games talent as its first actors.
Matthew Lillard and Josh Hutcherson have come aboard Five Nights at Freddy’s, although Deadline did not have any details about the characters they’ll be playing in the upcoming horror movie. For those unfamiliar with the original game and its follow-ups (created by Scott Cawthon), they take place within locations tied to the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza family restaurant chain. An employee working at night within one of these restaurants must try and survive being killed by its life-sized animatronic characters that have come to life, including the mascot Freddy. There are nine games within the main Freddy’s series, as well as numerous spinoffs and other types of tie-in media.
While Matthew Lillard is arguably best known for playing Shaggy Rogers in the live-action Scooby-Doo movies and various animated shows and direct-to-video movies, Scream fans of course remember him as Stu Macher in the 1996 original, and he also cameoed in the sequel as a different character. Lillard’s more recent credits include the Twin Peaks revival, Good Girls and He’s All That. As for Josh Hutcherson, Hunger Games fan know him as Peeta Mellark from the original four movies, and he also starred in the Hulu series Future Man and recently appeared in Across the River and Into the Trees.
Assuming the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie is retaining the same basic formula as the games, then I could see John Hutcherson playing the security guard who has to contend with these animatronic nightmares, while Matthew Lillard could be playing someone like the guard’s boss or voice one of these animatronic characters, like Freddy himself. Since Five Nights at Freddy’s is expected to begin production in New Orleans next February, along with more casting announcements rolling in, hopefully we’ll learn if my predictions for Lillard and Hutcherson were accurate or not before then.
Behind the scenes, Five Nights at Freddy’s will be directed by Blood Moon’s Emma Tammi, and Scott Cawthon, Emma Tammi, and Seth Cuddeback wrote the script. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop has been tapped to bring the movie’s animatronic characters to life. Blumhouse is producing the movie alongside Striker Entertainment.
Five Nights at Freddy’s doesn’t have an assigned release date yet, but with only a couple months to go until principal photography begins, it looks like this particular Blumhouse offering will finally become a reality. While we wait for more news on its progress, look through the 2023 movie releases that are slated on the calendar.