“No longer attached”: Director of the Greatest Ever Robin Williams Movie Was Original Choice for Josh Hutcherson’s Five Nights at Freddy’s

Five Nights at Freddy’s was one of the most successful video game adaptations. Despite attracting negative reviews, the movie earned outstanding figures at the box office. The movie directed by Emma Tammi was initially slated to be helmed by Chris Columbus, the director behind some of the most successful projects. 

Chris Columbus is known for directing some of the most renowned blockbusters of all time. This includes successful movies like Home Alone and Harry Potter. Additionally, he also directed the Robin Williams’ superhit cult classic Mrs. Doubtfire. It can’t be denied that his involvement in the project would have given us a different kind of experience.

Why did Chris Columbus leave Five Nights at Freddy’s?

Five Nights at Freddy’s was in production for a long time before finally coming to fruition. It was announced long back in 2015 after which it was plagued with production issues. The creator of the game Scott Cawthon rejected 9 different drafts for the movie. The production company Blumhouse Productions didn’t want to proceed against the wish of Cawthon as well.

In 2021, Jason Blum spoke to Collider to announce that Chris Columbus was no longer attached to the project. According to producer Jason Blum, the script was tough for them to crack and they didn’t want to proceed until Cawthon was satisfied.

“Chris Columbus is no longer attached. [Whether there’s a new director] is classified information. [The script is] really tough to crack… We’ve written multiple scripts, and we’ve got where we’re threading a needle, which is doing justice to Five Nights at Freddy’s and making Scott (Cawthon) happy. The only way that we would go about it is giving Scott … I don’t want to do something that Scott doesn’t like.”

After more than one year, the movie started to go fruitfully as Emma Tammi was attached as the director and co-writer of the screenplay alongside Scott Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback. Josh Hutcherson joined in the lead role and the film was finally released in October 2023. Even though it was heavily criticized, the film went on to earn around a gargantuan $294 million.

Five Nights at Freddy’s has a bright future ahead

Despite criticism surrounding the lack of scary elements and the PG-13 rating of the 2023 Josh Hutcherson flick, the movie was a blockbuster success. Earlier it was already announced that Five Nights at Freddy’s could be a franchise if the first movie was a success.

The reports were finally confirmed when the villain William Lafton actor Matthew Lillard confirmed that he signed a multi-movie deal with the production studios. Even the end credits scene of the movie hinted at the potential sequel for the movie. Just after the credits finish, we get a message “come find me” which suggests that a Fnaf 2 might drop sooner than expected.