The notion of robotic children’s mascots running amok and committing murder is, of course, hardly a new idea. Anyone who has been to a Showbiz Pizza or a Chuck E. Cheese’s likely noticed how off-putting the Rock-afire Explosion could be, and filmmakers have responded in recent years with movies like “Willy’s Wonderland,” and “The Banana Splits Movie.” It seems “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is following trends both bear-related and pizza-adjacent.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s,” however, might be seen as the leader of the charge, given the ubiquity and popularity of the games. That there may be a planned trilogy already on the drawing board speaks to the assumed hit status of the film adaptation; Universal seems to have a lot of faith in Freddy. Matthew Lillard, meanwhile, merely threw off casually, perhaps without even thinking about it, that sequels are already planned. He mentioned that he had to cancel a recent trip to Philadelphia as he was filming “Freddy’s,” a fact that impressed the host, Blake Rasmussen. Lillard mentioned that he was excited about “a three-picture deal with Universal and Blumhouse,” before lamenting that his day job would keep him from traveling.
The details of Lillard’s three-picture deal will have to remain unknown, of course, and there’s no guarantee that those films will definitely happen, as any sequels are likely contingent on how the first movie does at the box office. But for those who prefer to wildly speculate, it’s time to begin positing what three “Freddy’s” stories might be told.
The mythology of the games, of course, is vast. “Freddy’s” would eventually expand out of a pizza restaurant and land in a full-bore abandoned Freddy’s-themed amusement complex (in “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach”).
