Five Nights At Freddy's Rise From Indie Game To Full-Blown Movie Explained

Most of the time, it ends up being the huge video games, put out by major companies, that are chosen to be adapted into movies — "Super Mario Bros.," "Street Fighter," "Resident Evil," "Tomb Raider," and so on. So how did "Five Nights at Freddy's," a game that was created and distributed entirely by a single person, get to the point where it is getting a big-budget film distributed by Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions?

"Five Nights at Freddy's" — or "FNaF" for short — started out as a self-produced indie game that was built almost entirely around clicking between what were largely still images. To say that it captured lightning in a bottle would be an understatement, as it would take very little time for "FNaF" to grow into a multi-million-dollar brand that consisted not only of multiple video games but also books, toys, and more. 

Here's the story of how a guy who had spent years as a struggling mobile game maker eventually became a co-writer on a major motion picture based on his creation — and whose estimated net worth is now $70 million.

Cawthon wasn't getting all that much attention for his work one way or another, positive or negative. But his 2013 game "Chipper and Sons Lumber Co." ended up on the radar of a few prominent game journalists — in particular Jim Sterling, known for his work with Destructoid and The Escapist. Sterling absolutely ripped "Chipper and Sons" apart, taking specific aim at the game's animal creatures and how unintentionally terrifying they looked. Cawthon also said that various people described the characters in the game as looking like creepy animatronic creatures comes to life.

"I was heartbroken and was ready to give up on game-making," Cawthon told Indie Game Magazine about the reaction to "Chipper and Sons." "Then one night something just snapped in me, and I thought to myself, I bet I can make something a lot scarier than that." And with that, Cawthon took the complaints about the characters in "Chipper and Sons" and turned them right back on his critics, making a game that specifically was about scary animatronics that come to life and try to kill people. "Five Nights at Freddy's" would be released the following year, and the rest is history.

Considering how many games Cawthon managed to make before "FNaF," it's pretty obvious that he's able to work pretty quickly. And that speed also applied to the first "FNaF" game, which Cawthon developed in just six months in 2014 entirely on his own, except for the friends and family he enlisted to test it for bugs. Cawthon was already prone to making sequels to games he had affection for, whether they performed especially well or not, so it's possible he would have made "Five Nights at Freddy's 2" even without the positive buzz the first game was getting. Either way, he had a teaser for the sequel on his website only a month after the original game's release for PC, around the same time it began making its way to mobile devices.

"FNaF 2" would also see a quick turnaround, hitting PC, Android, and iOS in November 2014 — just three months after the original's PC release. The game, which ended up being a prequel to the original, had similar play mechanics with a few added twists. Most notably, various animatronic antagonists had specific criteria that needed to be filled in order to fend them off, including keeping a music box wound and needing to keep a flashlight trained on the hallways. There were also retro-style minigames that popped up whenever a player lost, which dug a little deeper into the characters and the lore. 

After the second "FNaF" game went the prequel route, "Five Nights at Freddy's 3" did a flash forward, taking place 30 years after the events of the first game. Cawthon had released the second game relatively early in the lifespan of "FNaF" hype, but by the time the third game hit in March 2015, things were already at a point where expectations were high and millions of people were waiting to play it. So it was on Cawthon to reinvent things a bit, especially after "FNaF 2" was mostly more of the same with just a few new wrinkles.

This time, the setting was a haunted house of sorts based on the restaurant chain from the original games, so horror was more baked into the premise than it had been before. All of the returning animatronics were now only ghosts who could mess with the player in various ways but not actually do physical harm. Instead, the gang of baddies from the previous games was instead replaced by newcomer Springtrap, the sole "living" animatronic and the only one who had the ability to kill the player. While everyone agreed that it was the most ambitious "FNaF" game yet from both a graphical and gameplay standpoint, some felt that the setting was lacking when compared to the originals, and that Springtrap wasn't a compelling enough villain to make up for the absence of an entire team of animatronics.

Anything that reaches a certain level of popularity is bound to inspire imitators. The fact that "FNaF" is built on a relatively simple premise makes it especially prone to being ripped off, and it didn't take long before blatant clones of the series started to appear online and in app stores. Some at least attempted to pretend they weren't trying to copy "FNaF," or brought a different spin to the formula, while others — like the awkwardly-titled "Night at Buddy 3" — had far less shame. 

It wasn't all just people trying to steal a piece of the financial windfall from a successful thing, though. "FNaF" also inspired mods in just about every game that allowed for them, from obvious ones like "Minecraft" and "Roblox," to more unusual examples, such as "Skyrim." And given Scott Cawthon's history with making fan games himself — he once made one based off the Nintendo franchise "Metroid" — he has been mostly supportive of "FNaF" fan games. He even launched the Fazbear Fanverse Initiative in 2020, wherein he helped to actually fund some of the more popular and ambitious "FNaF" fan games. 

Where there's a hugely successful media brand, there inevitably comes merchandise. And "FNaF" is no different, with multiple Funko Pop! toys as well as plushies, action figures, playsets, and more. McFarlane Toys, which has made a name for itself as one of the premiere makers of toys for both kids and adult collectors alike over the past 30 years, quickly joined the fray with its own line of "FNaF" figures and sets beginning in 2016.

In addition to the expected figures based on the various animatronics, McFarlane Toys also has really cool construction playsets that can be rearranged and customized in various ways, with some having as many as 300 different pieces to work with. In a 2017 interview with Monkeys Fighting Robots, Todd McFarlane gushed about the success of the "FNaF" merch his company had been putting out, claiming that the construction playsets had done Lego numbers in terms of sales. 

"[The FNaF toys are] selling like nothing I've ever done before," McFarlane said — and considering McFarlane Toys has worked with the likes of Disney and DC Comics, as well as taking on massive properties that include "Avatar," "Star Trek," "Stranger Things," "The Simpsons," and "The Walking Dead," that's really saying something. 

Even though "FNaF 4" purported to be the end of the main series, that didn't mean that there wouldn't be any more "FNaF" games at all. In fact, the very next year, in 2016, two spin-off games were released: role-playing game "FNaF World," and business management sim "Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator." Also in 2016 was "Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location," which was more in line gameplay-wise with the original "FNaF" series. In fact, it's sometimes considered the fifth main game in the series as opposed to another spin-off — something seemingly confirmed by its later inclusion in the "Five Nights at Freddy's Core Collection" compilation.

The "FNaF" game franchise has barely slowed down since, adding the two-part "Help Wanted" side series, the augmented reality-based "Special Delivery," side-scrolling action game "Freddy in Space 2" (an expanded follow-up to a minigame from "FNaF World"), and more, including the franchise's first-ever free-roaming 3D game, "Security Breach," which we'll dig into more in a bit. 

What had united all of the "FNaF" games up to this point was that they all very much felt like the work of one person, created over a fairly short period of time. That isn't a knock on the series or on Scott Cawthon's talent — that scrappy approach was a big part of the series' charm — but it doesn't make it any less of a fact that the games all had that low-budget, indie feel. Well, that all changed with the announcement of "Security Breach," the first "FNaF" game to actually look, sound, feel, and play like a modern, big-budget AAA video game.

Released in 2021, "Security Breach" definitely allowed fans to explore the world of "FNaF" in a way they never had before, featuring fully 3D environments that players could freely walk around in. Other changes included the setting being a shopping mall, the game taking place entirely within a single night rather than five, the ability to actually directly attack enemies, and a new version of Freddy — Glamrock Freddy — that served as the player's ally rather than enemy. 

Though critical response was tepid beyond praise for the production values, fans seemed to be a bit more positive, with the PlayStation version winning a Player's Choice Award via the PlayStation Blog. An expansion called "Ruin" was added to the game in July 2023 and was also well-received by fans. 

While hardcore "FNaF" fans' love for the game hasn't wavered much over the years, the franchise has definitely ebbed and flowed a bit within the mainstream public's consciousness. And for a major studio motion picture to be a hit, you need more than just the hardcore fans to show up for it. So in an era of somewhat niche game spin-offs, graphic novels, and other things that a casual or non-"FNaF" fan wouldn't care about, what can be done to keep the brand's name on people's minds?

Enter Jack Black — actor, musician, and most importantly, loud and proud gamer. Black has always been a champion for the games he enjoys, not only on his YouTube channel, Jablinski Games, but even in talk show appearances. For instance, in a 2020 video interview from his home with Jimmy Kimmel, there's a moment where Black disappears from the frame and when he emerges, he's wearing a Glitchtrap mask. Also that year, Black posted a brief video on TikTok decked out in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza pants and singing a bit of the Living Tombstones' "FNaF" song, eventually amassing nearly four million views. Not only did these viral clips delight "FNaF" fans, but they served to remind the rest of the world about the franchise and keep it in the pop culture discourse. 

Another potential blow to the future of not only the "FNaF" movie, but the franchise in general, came in June 2021 when Scott Cawthon announced he was retiring from making commercial video games. Cawthon had been embroiled in a backlash over his alleged political views, stemming from the discovery that he had made large donations to various Republican politicians' campaigns, including that of Donald Trump. 

Cawthon released a statement in which he claimed that he had also made donations to Democrats, and also responded to criticisms that the politicians he made donations to were anti-LGBTQ by insisting that he supported and appreciated the LGBTQ community — in particular, those that were part of his fan base. But it all got to be too much for Cawthon and he decided to shift toward a more private life. He stated that he'd only make video games as a hobby going forward, and that he would eventually cede control over the "FNaF" franchise to someone else. This begged the question of whether he was going to bail on his involvement in the "FNaF" movie, especially at a time when the project remained in limbo anyway, but those fears were eventually put to rest. 

Of course, the "FNaF" movie isn't out yet, so we don't know how good it is or if it'll be successful. The fact that Blumhouse has been willing to wait until Scott Cawthon was happy before filming could even officially start seems to point toward it being at least faithful to the spirit of the source material, but that doesn't necessarily mean it'll connect with a big enough audience to be deemed a hit. Still, that hasn't stopped Cawthon from envisioning what a second and third "FNaF" movie might look like.

Way back in 2018, Cawthon said that he already had an outline for an entire "FNaF" movie trilogy, adding that the second movie would follow the second game and the third would follow the third game. That's far from confirmation of anything, and it all depends on the first "FNaF" movie doing well enough to even have sequels at all, but it's still interesting to note that it's been on his mind. However, Matthew Lillard revealed on an episode of the podcast "WeeklyMTG" that his deal with Blumhouse was for three movies — and that immediately led to speculation that Blumhouse was also already getting its ducks in a row for a "FNaF" film trilogy. Time will tell, but it seems like a safe bet to prepare for more "FNaF" on the big screen in the future.