‘Five Nights at Freddy’s Global Box Office Levels Up With Massive Haul

The Big Picture

• Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s is a box office success, earning $150 million globally despite poor reviews, with a 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
• The film broke multiple records, including the biggest Halloween debut, largest domestic opening for Blumhouse, and top horror opening of 2023.
• Five Nights at Freddy’s has performed well on the Peacock streaming service, attracting younger audiences and potentially setting the stage for a new franchise.

Despite a day-and-date streaming release, Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s is performing spectacularly at the box office, both domestic and worldwide. Based on the popular video game franchise of the same name, the horror film has generated $92 million domestically and $58 million from overseas markets, for a running global gross of $150 million. The movie stars Josh Hutcherson as a night guard at an abandoned entertainment facility, who is hounded by a foursome of animatronic ghouls.

Directed by Emma Tammi, the movie’s poor reviews have been a non-factor over the last week. Five Nights at Freddy’s currently sits at a “rotten” 30% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, but the audience score stands at a far more encouraging 88%. Opening day crowds concurred, awarding the film an excellent A- CinemaScore. All this is very rare for a mainstream horror movie, which generally tend to be front-loaded, and are often derided. A recent outlier was Saw X, which emerged as something of a critical darling.

Five Nights at Freddy’s broke numerous records in its opening weekend, when it grossed $80 million domestically and $130 million worldwide. That domestic number was the biggest in horror specialists Blumhouse’s history, the biggest Halloween debut ever, and the top horror opening of 2023, by a wide margin. In just three days, Five Nights at Freddy’s also overtook Blumhouse’s recent flop The Exorcist: Believer’s running gross, which stands at just $60 million domestically and a little more than $120 million worldwide.

A Five Nights at Freddy’s Franchise Has Long Been in the Making

Incidentally, Five Nights at Freddy’s also delivered record numbers on the Peacock streaming service, indicating that audiences at both venues don’t always overlap. Blumhouse experienced similar success with this model a couple of years ago, when Halloween Kills opened to $49 million domestically despite a day-and-date Peacock debut. Five Nights at Freddy’s has been uncommonly successful with younger audiences, who turned out in droves at theaters to looking for a communal atmosphere. Universal also kept the budget for the movie in check, spending only around $20 million on production, plus the publicity and distribution costs. Return-on-investment in the horror genre has always been exceptional, and seeing the massive interest in Five Nights at Freddy’s, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that fans might have a new franchise to look forward to. You can watch the film in theaters and at home in the U.S., and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

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