After spending the better part of a decade in development hell, a film adaptation of the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s is now scheduled to begin filming in New Orleans in February. Emma Tammi – director of The Wind, Into the Dark: Delivered, and Into the Dark: Blood Moon – is at the helm of the Blumhouse production, which will star Matthew Lillard (Scream) and Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games)… and now Variety has broken the news that Lillard and Hutcherson are being joined in the cast by Mary Stuart Masterson (Benny & Joon).
Details on the characters Lillard, Hutcherson, and Masterson will be playing have not been revealed.
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 the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie just couldn’t get off the ground until Cawthon, Tammi, and Cuddeback put their heads together.
Are you looking forward to Five Nights at Freddy’s? What do you think of the fact that the movie is going to star Matthew Lillard, Josh Hutcherson, and Mary Stuart Masterson? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.