Producer Jason Blum has given the Five Nights at Freddy's film a huge upgrade after almost seven years of development. The survival horror video game franchise, created by Scott Cawthon, generally places players in the shoes of a nighttime security employee at the titular family pizza restaurant, monitoring the various security cameras, lights, doors, and vents to defend themselves against the evil animatronics that makes up the restaurant's colorful mascots. The Five Nights at Freddy's franchise, which began with the eponymous 2014 installment and was fully developed and published by Cawthon, has received generally positive reviews across its nine mainline titles, various spinoff games, and memorably became the subject of multiple "Let's Play" videos from YouTube gamers.
With the game's popularity, development of a Five Nights at Freddy's film has been underway since 2015, when Warner Bros. first acquired the rights to the game and tapped It producers Seth Grahame-Smith, Roy Lee, and David Katzenberg to produce, Ghostbusters: Afterlife's Gil Kenan to direct, and Child's Play's Tyler Burton Smith to co-write. Following several creative conflicts with Cawthon, the franchise's rights were eventually bought by Blumhouse Productions, who would work closely with the creator to prepare an adaptation, finally recruiting Harry Potter veteran Chris Columbus to write and direct. Columbus would eventually resign, leaving Cawthon and Blum back at square one on the Five Nights at Freddy's film, and now the producer has intriguing news on its progress.
While fans have been anticipating the project for years, Jason Blum took to Twitter to give a huge update for the Five Nights at Freddy's film. The producer revealed a behind-the-scenes shot from the film, indicating Jim Henson's Creature Shop has collaborated with Blumhouse on the project and has begun work on constructing the creatures for the horror adaption. Check out this fantastic update:
Blum's huge update for the Five Nights at Freddy's film comes months after the producer intimated that news on the project was "dangerously close" to being made public. Though it's unclear whether the update above is what Blum was referring to previously, it does indicate a significant step forward behind the scenes, as the studio is now collaborating with Jim Henson's Creature Shop to bring the terrifying creatures of Five Nights at Freddy's to life for the big screen. Not only should this bode well for the film's realistic approach to its animatronic characters, but it also represents the company's first significant foray into the horror genre after previously focusing on family-friendly blockbusters such as the Dark Crystal and Muppets series.
While Blumhouse may be aiming to gain a head start on pre-production for the project, the fact that Jim Henson's Creature Shop has begun work on the Five Nights at Freddy's film suggests that a new filmmaker has been discreetly connected to the project. With the studio frequently utilizing both new and recurring filmmakers over the years, it's difficult to speculate who will be at the helm for the project; however, with Cawthon having been closely involved with the film throughout its development, it would be interesting to see if he and Blum ultimately elected to let the franchise creator make his feature directorial debut with the long-gestating adaptation. Audiences will have to wait for further information on the Five Nights at Freddy's film in the near future.