How Five Nights at Freddy’s Turned Internet Fandom Into Box Office Gold

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, directed by Emma Tammi, is set to premiere in theaters on Dec. 5, 2025. Photo by Rubyanne Moley ©2025

In their black-and-white, long-sleeve shirt and mime-like makeup with purple tears, 22-year-old Ash Afaneh, a hairdresser from Addison, Texas, excitedly arrived at Cinemark. Their 16-year-old brother, Jay, a high school student, accompanied them wearing matching bunny ears, a purple shirt, and purple face paint. The average moviegoer might miss the meaning in their closet cosplays, but the crowds of other gamers dressed as security guards and bear costumes know that Ash and Jay are Marionette and Bonnie – two characters from the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s (or FNAF).

It’s October 2023, and fans gather at theaters nationally for the day they’ve all waited nearly a decade for—the release of the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. Ash and their brother are attending three days after the premiere, but the theater is just as packed as if it were opening night. 

The film isn’t just another horror flick; it serves as the screen adaptation of an internet-fueled childhood staple of which it’s named. Blumhouse’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s” arrived nine years after Scott Cawthorn created the indie point-and-click horror game, which puts players in the role of a security guard tasked with surviving the night shift at a family-entertainment center reminiscent of Chuck E. Cheese haunted by animatronics. 

While critics dismissed it, calling it over-edited and flawed, the film became Blumhouse’s top-grossing movie of all time after its premiere on Oct. 27, 2023. Both fans and experts name the debut film a pivotal point for the genre, showing that strong fan appeal through camp, nostalgia, and entertainment can outweigh harsh reviews. Now, as the sequel “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is set to release this December, the power of the fan will be crucial as ever for its success.

With a budget of only $20 million, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” earned around $297 million at the box office, according to entertainment news website Comic Book Resources. The film, which was released simultaneously in theaters and on Peacock, also broke the streamer’s record for most-streamed film of all time. 

“That’s a remarkable return, even by Blumhouse standards. The studio is known for low-budget films that perform well, but this puts Five Nights at Freddy’s in the same league as breakout hits like ‘Paranormal Activity’ and ‘Get Out,’” said actress, writer, and assistant film professor Jennifer Prediger.

At its core, developers describe the mechanics of FNAF as “simple” and “boring,” as game designer Brandon Stephens calls it. Rather, FNAF found depth in its community members, whose numbers grew as they bonded over mysteries they saw in the game. 

Players gravitated towards YouTubers like MatPat, Markiplier, and CoryxKenshin, who morphed FNAF into a shared experience by using their platforms as spaces for lore, debate and theories. Their names soon became synonymous with the FNAF franchise, some even receiving a feature in the 2023 film. Because the franchise’s 28 games were often too daunting to play alone, fans turned to these creators to face the jumpscares for them.

Film experts and moviegoers alike speculate that FNAF’s lore, the web that bonds the online community, posed a significant challenge to screenwriters who sought to maintain game accuracy while making the story accessible to newcomers. Whether through Reddit, YouTube, or .txt files (which fans distributed across Discord servers), the game’s story came to life as they pieced together in-game posters, subtle noises, and hidden words to unravel the real truth behind the game’s animatronics.

“The hardest part of adapting a game is balancing faithfulness to the game with storytelling,” said Prediger. “Fans want the world they know, but the film still has to function as a movie. Screenwriters are always walking that tightrope.”

In the 2023 film, producers opted for an altered timeline but preserved foundational events, characters and signature jingle by The Living Tombstone. With the sequel approaching, the challenge remains.

The success of video game shows such as HBO’s “The Last of Us,” Amazon’s “Fallout,” and Netflix’s “Arcane” demonstrates the ability to achieve that balance. Steve Stringer, Gamelab director at SMU Guildhall and game producer, named these shows as some of the “best to air” for their memorable voice actors, fan service, and creative choices. These titles, winning millions of viewers and critical acclaim, exemplify a model for future game adaptations.

And when done well, the numbers show it. According to Forbes, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” grossed more than  $1.36 billion worldwide, was named the highest-grossing animated film of 2023, and scored a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which also premiered in 2023, shared a similar struggle to FNAF with its lack of linear source material. “The games do not really have a plot at all, so the movie had to take the loose elements and craft something that stands on its own,” said Stringer about “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” “Like the others, it understands the assignment. It retains the spirit of the game and feels like an extension of it while it creates a whole new reality.”

Some franchises have tried and failed, undermining the genre’s credibility for the rest, such as “Doom” (2005), “Super Mario Bros.” (1993), and “Borderlands” (2024). Fans agree that poor casting, lack of accuracy to the source material, and loss of the game’s original atmosphere played roles in these worst-performing titles.

As Prediger noted, FNAF’s dual success in theaters and on streaming will redefine how future studios approach fandom-driven releases, especially Blumhouse, with the FNAF sequel heading for theaters on Dec. 5. Rumored to have a $51 million budget and a star-studded cast featuring Megan Fox, Skeet Ulrich and Mckenna Grace, the hype for the franchise is rising again.

Fan Sage Saili, a 20-year-old SMU film student who grew up watching Markiplier and Jacksepticeye’s game playthroughs in 2016, attended the premiere with a group of friends in an experience where energy and nostalgia reminded her of what it meant to love FNAF. Pleased with the recent official trailer for “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” she has hope for the sequel. 

“If you were a true FNAF fan, you would appreciate how long it took to get here,” Saili said. “We all used to be little weird kids, and now that we’re grown, we still appreciate and have excitement for the new movie. Things that you loved in childhood never really go away.”