Universal and Blumhouse’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” pulled in $7.2 million at the box-office from Thursday night previews.
That’s 30% down from the $10.3 million the first film landed in previews in 2023. The original film opened to an astonishing $80 million at the time, and that was with a day-and-date release on Peacock.
The sequel is a pure theatrical play this time, and projections had it at $35-40 million going into the weekend. Whether that will still hold isn’t clear, but the preview number suggests it could be higher, closer to $50 million.
A lot will depend on whether the film will have a steep drop on Saturday, like the precipitous 39% fall the first film had.
Emma Tammi returns to direct the sequel which has drawn scathing reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes it drew just 13% positive reviews compared to the 33% of the first. On Metacritic it landed a 31/100 compared to the first’s 33/100.
Even so, that puts it as one of the absolute worst reviewed films of the year, close to the Russo Brothers’ “The Electric State” and the Ice Cube-led “War of the Worlds”.
Source: Deadline
