Any hesitation Jason Blum or Universal execs may have had before unleashing the live-action Five Nights at Freddy’s on theatergoers (and streamers with Peacock subscriptions) presumably flew out the window whenever the video game adaptation started breaking box office records, as it’s currently Blumhouse’s biggest global release to date. So why hasn’t there been any confirmed sequel news? The motivations are still unclear, but we took the question to FNAF’s overarching villain William Afton, or at least his A+ portrayer Matthew Lillard, to get his thoughts.
With the SAG-AFTRA strike keeping Lillard from freely talking about Five Nights at Freddy’s around its pre-Halloween release, the Scream vet talked to CinemaBlend’s Philip Sledge about playing a fan-favorite villain and how it felt working with the animatronic puppetry crafted by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. And while the actor easily could have played things coyly or completely deflected any questions about the status of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, he sparked quite a bit of hope with his answer (as seen in the interview clip above):
The good news is that we're pulling off a long legacy of games here, and creator Scott [Cawthon) has a very clear sense of the stories he wants to tell. I think that, you know, a lot of movies are left to their own devices; they're made from whole cloth. That story can go anywhere. But we have a bible here to pay attention to and follow. And so I think that it's important to Scott that he sort of fills in a lot of the lore questions that live in this community, and keep giving the fans of the community what they want. Which is, you know, the hows and why and everything in between.
Understandably, Matthew Lillard couldn't specifically address where things stand, but spoke of the franchise in the present tense as if it was a living and breathing entity, which offhandedly implies that cog-wheels are turning in the right direction somewhere behind the scenes.
To speak of the video game's already huge legacy, and the variety of releases that creator Scott Cawthon has continued to develop at a relatively rapid pace, would be a weird route for Lillard to take if there was any indication that Five Nights at Freddy's would be limiting its live-action universe to just a single film. I may or may not be running on caffeinated optimism at this point.
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I mean, he could have just been waxing hopeful, certainly, but fans are well aware of how long it took the first film to come to fruition, and how much the audience goodwill dwarfed any and all critical opinions. Cawthon wanted to do right by the fandom, and I'd be shocked if he chose to pull the reins back after such a boffo box office showing. (And those numbers don't even reflect all the sign-up success that Peacock reported on after the release.
Plus, the movie itself, which is available now on Digital, and on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD from Universal Home Entertainment, wraps up in a way that allows for an easy follow-up, from the end credits message to the tease of Lillard's Springtrap Afton being left (presumably for dead) in the storage room, promising his return. Not to mention the mid-credits scene with Birthday Boy for YouTuber CoreyxKenshin's cameo and possible death. And like the actor pointed out, there are tons of games whose stories need to be brought to life on the big screen, so here's hoping updates on Freddy Fazbear's next adventure are right around the pizzeria corner.
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