The movie script for “Five Nights at Freddy’s” was wrapped up and greenlit by both Jason Blum and Chris Columbus, but game creator Scott Cawthon decided to “toss it” because it didn’t match his vision for the movie adaptation, Cawthon posted on the forum for the game Monday.
A film adaptation of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” has been in the works since 2015 when Warner Bros. Pictures acquired the rights to the games. But in 2017, the movie moved over to Blumhouse Productions with producer Jason Blum taking to Twitter to confirm the news. Blumhouse announced that Chris Columbus would be the director of the film, working with Cawthon and Blum. Earlier this year, Cawthon said that the movie would be based on the first game and that subsequent movies would follow the story of the second and third games.
On Monday, Cawthon once more took to the forums for his games to update fans on not just the movie, but a slew of projects he’s working on.
“OK guys, I had a script written; Jason liked it, and Chris Columbus liked it too, but I tossed it,” he wrote. “I had a different idea for it, one that I liked better. I take responsibility for this delay; it’s my fault. ”
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He went on to discuss how challenging it has been to come up with a good screenplay for this first movie project.
“I’m determined to find the right story,” he wrote. “I’m sticking to what I’ve always said, either the right movie gets made or no movie gets made. I hate delaying a project that’s already seen so many delays, but I have to go with my instincts on what I think will be exciting and interesting, and what I think the fanbase will really want to see. If that means that I have to start over ten more times, then that’s what I’m going to do. The good thing is that each attempt gets better and better, in my opinion. So, despite the delays, it’s going in the right direction.”
He also reiterated his desire to have the movie and any potential sequels take place in the universe of the first three “Five Night at Freddy’s” games.
“The games after ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 3’ will not exist in the movie universe,” he wrote. “Like it or hate it, I felt that this was the best portion of the storyline to really focus in on.”
Other updates include news that a virtual reality version of the game is about 40 percent complete, an augmented reality version is 10 percent complete, the next game and a “AAA game” are both still not in development yet, and both console ports and a new book series with Scholastic are about 20 percent complete.
The “Five Nights at Freddy’s” game franchise kicked off in 2014 with an indie game about a night security guard at a kid’s pizza restaurant that features seemingly homicidal animatronic characters.