Five Nights At Freddy's Continues Josh Hutcherson's Unlikely Transformation Into Genre Movie Star
When Josh Hutcherson was cast in "Five Nights at Freddy's," it just made sense. Director and co-writer Emma Tammi's film adaptation of the lore-heavy hit horror video game franchise has the actor playing Mike Schmidt, an Average Joe who takes a job as the night security guard at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, unaware of that tiny issue where the entertainment center's animatronic mascots come to life and begin massacring people after midnight. Mike himself is the type of archetypical hero Hutcherson is best known for portraying; a humble everyman who must rise to the occasion in the face of extraordinary circumstances.
In a way, Hutcherson's unlikely transformation into one of this century's major genre movie and TV actors began with his first feature film, "American Splendor." One of the best comic book adaptations ever made, the film carries over the meta-narrative and autobiographical elements of Harvey Pekar's source material, resulting in a film that's part inventive dramatization, part insightful documentary. While Hutcherson only had a very small role in the film as an unnamed kid dressed as Robin, it kind of set the tone for the career he's had since — making genre films that either scribble outside the lines (like "American Splendor") or, if not that, stand out from their peers.
You can see that in the films Hutcherson starred in growing up, including director Jon Favreau's imaginative financial bomb "Zathura: A Space Adventure" and director Gábor Csupó's acclaimed tear-jerking kids' book adaptation "Bridge to Terabithia." By the end of the 2000s, Hutcherson was going on fantastical adventures with Brendan Fraser in the playfully kitschy "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and tangling with blood-suckers in the not-so-beloved young adult novel-based "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant." Of course, it was another YA adaptation that affirmed his status as a genre superstar.
A Peeta by any other name
Dwayne Johnson, who was only then coming into his own as Franchise Viagra, replaced Fraser as Hutcherson's father-figure in the sequel "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," and the result was (no surprise) a much more profitable film. You would be forgiven if you'd forgotten "Journey 2" even existed, though, seeing as "The Hunger Games" opened a month later. The smash-hit adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-selling dystopian YA novels and its sequels were the films that cemented Hutcherson's onscreen persona thanks to his performance as Peeta Mellark, the modest, charismatic, bread-baking boy next door to Jennifer Lawrence's fiery heroine (she is literally "The Girl On Fire"), Katniss Everdeen.
In terms of your craft, however, the real perk to playing one of the leads in an extremely popular film series is you can spend the years that follow subverting the very public image you've come to be associated with. Daniel Radcliffe's had a blast doing that since his "Harry Potter" days, and Hutcherson has occasionally done something similar, hamming it up as a despicable criminal in Mike Gan's comedy-thriller "Burn" and getting taken out in comically brutal fashion in director and co-writer Tyler MacIntyre's well-received horror-comedy "Tragedy Girls." The irreverent yet sophisticated Hulu series "Future Man," on the other hand, saw Hutcherson return to his roots as an unassuming janitor who gets pulled into a real-life version of his favorite video game, but it was also a reminder of just how good he is at playing that archetype.
This brings us back to "Five Nights at Freddy's," which gives Hutcherson the chance to prove his bona fides as the hero in a horror film. With any luck, it will be to him what "The Evil Dead" was to Bruce Campbell.
"Five Nights at Freddy's" hits theaters and Peacock on October 27, 2023.