Five Nights at Freddy’s Crosses $300 Million to Become 2023’s Highest Grossing Horror Movie

FNAF continues to clean up at the box office more than a month later.

The horror genre has seen a lot of success over the last few years, and 2023 has had much to celebrate. In particular, movies like Scream VI, Thanksgiving, and Insidious: The Red Door have all proven to be success stories at the box office. However, none of these movies were nearly as successful as Five Nights at Freddy’s. The movie recently crossed $300 million at the global box office, making it the year’s highest-grossing horror film. At this time, Blumhouse has not officially announced a sequel, but rumors have suggested that director Emma Tammi will return for Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. 

The success of Five Nights at Freddy’s is all the more impressive considering the movie received a simultaneous release on Peacock. That could have easily cut down on the movie’s theatrical performance, but clearly fans of the games were still willing to go see it on the big screen. 

2023: The Year of Video Game Movies

Five Nights at Freddy’s marked Blumhouse’s first movie based on a video game. While 2023 has been a big year for horror, it’s also been a huge one for video game adaptations; The Super Mario Bros. Movie released back in April, earning more than $1 billion at the global box office, while The Last of Us proved to be a huge hit for HBO when it debuted in January. Projects like these are proving to studios that there’s a lot of interest in faithful video game adaptations, and that can translate to big success. In fact, Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum told Discussing Film earlier this year that the studio is interested in adapting other games into horror movies. 

It’s worth noting that Blum’s comments came months prior to the release of Five Nights at Freddy’s. Now that the movie is out and a big success story for Blumhouse, it’s all the more likely that we’ll see more releases inspired by major games. We don’t know what will come next for the company, but Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is the safest bet. 

2024 Video Game Adaptations

Blumhouse won’t be the only studio chasing the success of video game adaptations at the box office. A number of other major video game adaptations are currently in the works and slated to release in 2024. Next year, Warner Bros. will be releasing Mortal Kombat 2 in theaters, while Paramount will have Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Streaming services will also have some big name adaptations, including Halo Season 2 on Paramount+ and Fallout on Amazon. It remains to be seen whether any of these will prove as successful as The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Five Nights at Freddy’s, or The Last of Us, but it’s clear that studios are trying to find the next big video game movie or TV show. 

Are you surprised by the success of Five Nights at Freddy’s? Did you check out the film in theaters? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

[H/T: Okami Games]