I suspect it's a situation where fans of the games like it due to fondness of the property, but that doesn't equate to good filmmaking. Cinemascore often has less to do with the quality of a film than it does with audiences feeling like they got what they paid for. In this instances, fans of the games were probably satisfied.
On the flipside, many great movies have gotten terrible cinema scores due to misleading marketing campaigns.
I'm glad Five Nights at Freddys is doing well because I always root for theatrical moviegoing to succeed. I just wish the movie itself was better.
It’s an abysmal, cheap, deeply cynical piece of filmmaking - but then, the folks championing it here are deeply cynical as well. I go on and on about the reliable profitability of cheap horror, but as you point out, a lot of contemporary cheap horror is good to great. Even something like The Pope’s Exorcist, which I just watched, is very dumb but quite fun. Five Nights embodies all of Hollywood’s worst instincts in a way we actually see very rarely - absolutely no one involved cared at all.
It’s an abysmal, cheap, deeply cynical piece of filmmaking - but then, the folks championing it here are deeply cynical as well. I go on and on about the reliable profitability of cheap horror, but as you point out, a lot of contemporary cheap horror is good to great. Even something like The Pope’s Exorcist, which I just watched, is very dumb but quite fun. Five Nights embodies all of Hollywood’s worst instincts in a way we actually see very rarely - absolutely no one involved cared at all.
Wow. Who knew? This makes me want to Google this Freddy's movie and find out what it's all about.
I won't go see it; I dislike horror movies in general and have absolutely no interest in it. But now I've got to find out what all you guys are talking about!
EDIT:Ohhhh.... I get it now. I just read the Wikipedia page about this movie/plot (a very funny sounding concept, I must admit), but also learned about the creator of this video game and new franchise. It suddenly all makes sense why he'd be angering to some that his small-budget PG-13 tame horror movie is making a big profit for him.
It’s an abysmal, cheap, deeply cynical piece of filmmaking - but then, the folks championing it here are deeply cynical as well. I go on and on about the reliable profitability of cheap horror, but as you point out, a lot of contemporary cheap horror is good to great. Even something like The Pope’s Exorcist, which I just watched, is very dumb but quite fun. Five Nights embodies all of Hollywood’s worst instincts in a way we actually see very rarely - absolutely no one involved cared at all.
I mean, credit where credit is due, I feel like Josh Hutcherson did a great job acting with what he was given. But Five Nights at Freddys is just a failure on every other level that it feels like a wasted performance.
Five Nights at Freddy's is terrible. I don't know if I count as a fan anymore because I stopped paying attention around game 5, but I used to be really into it when it was getting started and still have a big soft spot for those early ones (and a general idea of where things went after?) and I hated it. I've seen some other people who're fans say that they changed too much context for the fan service angle to work for them, so I'm not completely alone, I guess.
In case anyone is wondering, there is absolutely zero fort building with the animatronics in the Five Nights at Freddy's games.
I would not say no one cared because 1. whoever made the animatronics so close to the darned games that they look fake because they literally look like they were cut and pasted from them clearly cared, and 2. Scott Cawthon (the guy who made the games and was at least partially involved in writing) clearly cared very much about referencing his games over and over.
About an actual atmosphere, tension, story, worthwhile payoff, characters, and other things good horror movies (or just movies) tend to have, yeah, no one cared.
Honestly it reminded me of Haunted Mansion in its "reference slideshow loosely masquerading as a movie"-ness.
Five Nights at Freddy's is terrible. I don't know if I count as a fan anymore because I stopped paying attention around game 5, but I used to be really into it when it was getting started and still have a big soft spot for those early ones (and a general idea of where things went after?) and I hated it. I've seen some other people who're fans say that they changed too much context for the fan service angle to work for them, so I'm not completely alone, I guess.
In case anyone is wondering, there is absolutely zero fort building with the animatronics in the Five Nights at Freddy's games.
I would not say no one cared because 1. whoever made the animatronics so close to the darned games that they look fake because they literally look like they were cut and pasted from them clearly cared, and 2. Scott Cawthon (the guy who made the games and was at least partially involved in writing) clearly cared very much about referencing his games over and over.
About an actual atmosphere, tension, story, worthwhile payoff, characters, and other things good horror movies (or just movies) tend to have, yeah, no one cared.
Honestly it reminded me of Haunted Mansion in its "reference slideshow loosely masquerading as a movie"-ness.
Its very rare for Hollywood executives to get fired for box office performance, it happens but very rare. Its the reason why you have so many entrenched executives walking the halls at every studio around Hollywood. Its not a Disney thing, its a Hollywood thing.
So you keep asking who at Disney Studios is getting fired, likely nobody at least not at the executive level. Maybe some underlings might get fired and there is maybe some shuffling of staff positions within the company but that is probably about it. And sorry your dream of WDAS and Pixar merging operations is also not likely to happen either.
So very little is going to change other than they will be more risk adverse in the future with picking projects and maybe tweaking budgets, ie look for more sequels to come out.
Pre pandemic the studios were on a decade plus run of doing extremely well so you want to fire the people who created that because they hit a bad streak? Instead, why not look at what changed between when they were successful and now to see if there is some underlying cause instead of assume that everyone just forgot how to make movies.
There are a number of reasons but here is one of the biggest ones to me:
Movie
Production Start
Approved by
Ant Man
Jul-21
Chapek
Indian Jones
Jun-21
Chapek
GoTG V3
Nov-21
Chapek
Little Mermaid
Jan-21
Chapek
Elemental
N/A*
Iger
Haunted Mansion
Oct-21
Chapek
A Haunting in Venice
Oct-22
Chapek/Iger
The Creator
Jan-22
Chapek
The Marvels
Aug-21
Chapek
Next Goal Wins
Nov-19
Iger
Wish
N/A*
Iger
*Don't have an exact date for these but both were in production pre covid so had to be Iger
How about a couple of D+ examples as well:
Show
Production Start
Approved By
She Hulk
Apr-21
Chapek
Peter Pan and Wendy
Mar-21
Chapek
Pinocchio
Mar-21
Chapek
Ms. Marvel
Nov-20
Chapek
We don't know about The Marvels, Next Goal Wins or Wish yet but every single bomb you have mentioned this year had it's final approval and production run take place under the system Chapek put in place with only A Haunting in Venice having any real cross over as it didn't finish filming until after Iger came back. So, they basically already did exactly what you wanted, they fired the executive that was responsible for every last one of these bombs.
It’s an abysmal, cheap, deeply cynical piece of filmmaking - but then, the folks championing it here are deeply cynical as well. I go on and on about the reliable profitability of cheap horror, but as you point out, a lot of contemporary cheap horror is good to great. Even something like The Pope’s Exorcist, which I just watched, is very dumb but quite fun. Five Nights embodies all of Hollywood’s worst instincts in a way we actually see very rarely - absolutely no one involved cared at all.
It’s entertainment…what Disney is producing really isn’t. It’s gonna hit with who they wanted it to hit with.
You can use simple formulas and sometimes they work.
Or do $400 mil of production and marketing to make cgi fish?
And they FINALLY turned off that awful Under the Sea in the targets around me…with “cheap Beyoncé” wailing over the crab
What in the HECK is "Five Nights at Freddy's"???? I've never heard of it until I just looked at the box office site and saw it made $39 million yesterday!!!
What in the HECK is "Five Nights at Freddy's"???? I've never heard of it until I just looked at the box office site and saw it made $39 million yesterday!!!
What in the HECK is "Five Nights at Freddy's"???? I've never heard of it until I just looked at the box office site and saw it made $39 million yesterday!!!
A video game phenomenon that largely birthed the widespread and profitable genre of videos in which people play video games and pretend to be scared. A tremendously important cultural touchstone and one of the most significant pieces of media for an entire (young) generation.
What in the HECK is "Five Nights at Freddy's"???? I've never heard of it until I just looked at the box office site and saw it made $39 million yesterday!!!
Don't worry, it's not just you. I had no idea what it was either until this afternoon and I had to go look it up on Wikipedia.
It's a clever plot concept. I guess the video games it is all based on are big with the kids? And the movie was made for only $25 Million and is heading to a $75 Million opening weekend. It came out of nowhere as far as I'm concerned, but here we are.
FNAF is not only popular from the people who played it, but it was also a viral phenomenon of watching other people play it on Twitch and other gaming streamers. I'm totally familiar with what it is but never have played it myself.
FNAF is not only popular from the people who played it, but it was also a viral phenomenon of watching other people play it on Twitch and other gaming streamers. I'm totally familiar with what it is but never have played it myself.
