Five Nights at Freddy’s: Matthew Lillard, Josh Hutcherson star in video game adaptation

After spending the better part of a decade in development hell, a film adaptation of the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s is making its way into production. A couple months ago, it was announced that Emma Tammi – director of The Wind, Into the Dark: Delivered, and Into the Dark: Blood Moon, had signed on to direct the film for Blumhouse Productions. Now Deadline reports that the film has landed two cast members: Matthew Lillard (Scream) and Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games).

Details on the characters Lillard and Hutcherson will be playing were not revealed, but Deadline did confirm that Five Nights at Freddy’s is scheduled to begin filming in New Orleans in February.

Created by Scott Cawthon, the video game takes place in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a darker version of Chuck-E-Cheese, where an animatronic animal band performs kiddy songs by day, and goes on murderous rampages by night. The goal of the game is survive a night locked inside, knowing that a furry death machine might jump out of the dark at any moment.

Cawthon and Tammi wrote the screenplay for the film with Seth Cuddeback. The adaptation is being produced by Blumhouse, in association with Striker Entertainment. Cawthon is a producer alongside Blumhouse founder Jason Blum. Russell Binder is executive producing. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop is handling the special effects that will bring the homicidal animatronic animals to life on the screen.

The Five Nights at Freddy’s adaptation was originally set up at Warner Bros., where Gil Kenan (Monster House) was going to direct the film from a screenplay he was writing with Tyler Burton Smith (the Child’s Play remake). Then the project moved over to Blumhouse, where Chris Columbus (Home Alone) was attached to direct it for several years. But they just couldn’t seem to get the script right. Now, it looks like Cawthon, Tammi, and Cuddeback have finally figured out how to make it work.

Are you a fan of Five Nights at Freddy’s, and are you glad the movie is about to happen? What do you think of Matthew Lillard and Josh Hutcherson leading the cast? Let us know by leaving a comment below.