“Five Nights at Freddy’s” grossed $80 million at the domestic box office in its first weekend of release, exceeding its already high estimate of $78 million on Sunday.
Universal and Blumhouse released the film, which landed on Peacock at the same time. With Monday’s final numbers, “Five Nights” surpassed Disney’s 2021 Marvel adventure “Black Widow” ($80 million in theaters and $60 million on Disney+) as the biggest opening weekend for a daily streaming Publication classified.
Although Disney reported initial digital sales of “Black Widow,” which cost $30 to rent in addition to the monthly subscription fee, NBCUniversal did not share specific streaming metrics for “Five Nights.” However, the company claimed that “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is the most-watched and biggest subscription driver on Peacock (which has far fewer subscribers than Disney+) since its release on October 26th. “Five Nights” is available at no additional charge to monthly subscribers.
Even by Sunday’s estimates, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” was already ranked as the best of all Universal and Peacock’s hybrid releases, surpassing 2021’s slasher sequels “Halloween Kills” ($49 million) and “Halloween Ends.” from 2022 ($40 million). And these were follow-up films to a tried and tested film series.
Based on the popular video game, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” follows Josh Hutcherson as a nighttime security guard at a family entertainment center called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. But he finds out the hard way that it’s not exactly Chuck E. Cheese, as these animatronic mascots are prone to murder. The reviews were terrible (the film has a 25% on Rotten Tomatoes), but that doesn’t matter because it was well received by audiences, giving it an “A-” CinemaScore rating. With its production budget of $20 million, the film is already a big commercial winner.
“The IP is incredibly popular, and Blumhouse and our director Emma Tammi have done a great job bringing it to the big screen,” said Jim Orr, president of domestic distribution at Universal. “The genre is suitable for people who want to experience it together.”
Some box office analysts believe a hybrid release leaves money on the table. “The premium experience of watching a horror movie is sitting shoulder to shoulder in a dark room, jumping, gasping and laughing with a room full of strangers,” says David A. Gross, who runs the film consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research . “The audience watching at home this weekend will not have that experience and ticket sales will be lost.”
At Five Nights at Freddy’s, it didn’t seem to stop too many fans from buying tickets. The film grossed an additional $52 million at the international box office, giving it a shockingly good worldwide opening of $132 million. Among its many early box office records, it is also the highest-grossing opening weekend for Blumhouse, surpassing 2018’s “Halloween” ($76.22 million) and is the second-biggest debut ever for a video game adaptation behind “The” Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($146.3 million).