• Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s is defying poor reviews and achieving box office records with a daily release on streaming service Peacock—it earned $39 million on Friday and is approaching $78 million in its opening weekend.
  • Despite lukewarm reviews, the film was well received by fans, receiving an A-CinemaScore and an 89% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but the official rating on the site is a “rotten” 25%.
  • This success marks a much-needed comeback for horror studio Universal after the underwhelming results of their last release. Exorcist: Believerwhich has yet to reach $60 million at the domestic box office after three weeks.

Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s‘s, a PG-13 rated slasher film based on the popular video game franchise of the same name, is fighting back against poor reviews by posting record box office numbers over Halloween weekend. And it does so via daily releases on the streaming service Peacock. The film grossed a whopping $39 million on Friday, including the $10 million it earned from Thursday previews, and is on pace for a record $78 million opening weekend.

If these predictions come true, the film will be the biggest Halloween debut and the biggest horror opening of the year by a wide margin. Although the film received lukewarm reviews, fan feedback was more encouraging. Five Nights at Freddy’sreceived an impressive A-CinemaScore from opening day audiences, an incredibly rare achievement for a horror film, and currently has an 89% audience approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. However, the official rating of the film on the website is “rotten” 25%. Universal previously achieved continued success with the director’s second film. David Gordon GreenHalloween reboot trilogy, Halloween kills. The film, also produced by Blumhouse, earned nearly $50 million in its opening weekend of 2021. Five Nights at Freddy’sThis marks a much-needed horror comeback for the studio, which is still reeling from the underperformance of its last release. Exorcist: Believerwhich, by the way, failed to make $60 million domestically within three weeks of release.

The rest of the Halloween weekend box office top five was dominated by leftovers

Taylor Swift: Eras Tour
Image via Taylor Swift

Second place this weekend will be Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour a concert film that topped the box office for two weekends in a row thanks to its unconventional release. The film is shown only on weekends, from Thursday to Sunday, and on November 3 the second stage of its worldwide distribution will begin. Eras Tour grossed $4.8 million on its third Friday, bringing its domestic total to $139 million. By Sunday, the film will likely cross the $150 mark domestically on a budget reported to be in the $15 million range.

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon expects about $10 million in its second weekend after reporting $3.6 million on Friday. The three-and-a-half-hour epic was always going to be a tough sell to the general public, despite the presence Leonardo DiCaprio And Robert DeNiro in front of the camera and Scorsese behind it. The film earned $23 million in its opening weekend and is likely to cross the $43 million mark by Sunday. Fourth and fifth places went to the Angel Studios documentary. After death And Exorcist: Believer. Bye After death is targeting a $6 million opening after Friday’s $2.3 million opening. Believer will add about $3.5 million this weekend after taking in just under $1 million on Friday. That would bring the total domestic market to about $60 million by Sunday, still below expectations. Five Nights at Freddy’sMost likely this will happen in three days. Stay tuned to Collider for updates.

Five Nights at Freddy’s is available to stream on Peacock in the US.

Watch on Peacock

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Can you survive five nights? A terrifying horror gaming phenomenon becomes a chilling cinematic event as Blumhouse—producer of M3GAN, Black Phone and The Invisible Man—brings Five Nights at Freddy’s to the big screen. The film follows a troubled security guard who starts working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. After spending his first night at work, he realizes that it won’t be so easy to survive the night shift at Freddy’s.

Date of issue
October 27, 2023

Director
Emma Tammy

Throw
Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard, Elizabeth Lail, Mary Stuart Masterson

Rating
PG-13

lead time
110 minutes

Genres
Horror