There was a time when the biggest thing in video games was a simple independently developed horror title called Five Nights at Freddy's. Of course, it's possible that the game itself was somewhat less popular than the act of watching another person play it and leap out of their skin during one of the franchise's trademark jump scares, but it was popular nonetheless. The game may not be the biggest name in the industry currently, but it's still well regarded, so much so that a movie adaptation has been in development for years, and apparently, still is.
Jason Blum, whose Blumhouse studio is producing the Five Nights at Freddy's film recently told Inverse, that, while the movie has been slow going, it has been progressing forward at a steady pace. While it doesn't look like the project is close to finished yet, Blum certainly implies that the script process has been slowly unraveling the surprisingly complex film. Because of the depth to the story, turning the series, that now includes multiple games and books, has been a challenge. According to Blum...
It’s still active. We haven’t quite figured it out, but we’re getting closer every day. The story is the big challenge. You know, Five Nights at Freddy’s should have been easier because there are books, there’s a lot of lore and storytelling. For a video game, I think it has more storytelling than almost any other. But still, the story goes down so many rabbit holes. It goes down so many different directions. It’s big. Choosing which part to tell the first time out of the gate — and how to tell it — has been tricky.
At its core Five Nights at Freddy's is a simple enough game. The player takes on the role of a night watchman at a Chuck E. Cheese-like pizza parlor, called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. The player sits at a security station and watches computer monitors for anything suspicious. There are no issues with break-ins. However, the night watchmen is required to deal with the fact that at night the animatronic mascot characters come to life and try to murder him.
While the premise is simple, game creator Scott Cawthon actually created some incredibly deep lore that's built into the fabric of the games. While numerous details regarding "what it all means" have been sprinkled throughout the various games, its often done in such a hidden and vague way that fans spend as much time trying to decode the game as they do playing it.
The movie has a pretty solid opportunity, as the lore of Five Nights has become a little nuts over the years and a movie has the benefit of simplifying and straightening it all out. At the same time, the movie might want to make changes to the story as well. Otherwise, a lot of people will know all the secrets before the movie ever arrives.
