Five Nights At Freddy's Fell Hard At The Box Office – Was The Peacock Release A Mistake?
For the second weekend in a row, Universal and Blumhouse's video game adaptation "Five Nights at Freddy's" remained atop the box office charts. Granted, this past weekend didn't bring much by way of significant competition, with Meg Ryan's low-budget rom-com "What Happens Later" and A24's Priscilla Presley biopic "Priscilla" entering the fold. On paper, topping the charts for two weekends looks great, but "Five Nights at Freddy's" did take a nosedive in its second frame, dropping a whopping 76%. Why the big tumble? It appears Peacock is to blame.
The adaptation from director Emma Tammi took in an estimated $19.4 million on its second weekend in theaters. That's a steep decline compared to the $80 million opening the horror flick posted over Halloween weekend. Now, let's be clear before we get into the weeds here: nobody is crying for Universal or Blumhouse. The film carries a budget in the $20-25 million range and has already made $113.6 million domestically to go with $103.5 million internationally for a grand total of $217.1 million to date. This is a home run by anyone's method of Hollywood accounting. A sequel — if not multiple sequels — is all but guaranteed at this point.
But movies that drop 76% on their second weekend are pretty darn rare and, in recent years, the ones that do are often accompanied by a streaming release. Just look at "Halloween Ends" last year, which opened to $40 million before being torpedoed in its second weekend with an $8 million haul, representing an 80% drop. The common thread? "Halloween Ends" was released on Peacock the same day it hit theaters, and so was "Five Nights at Freddy's." That streaming release now looms large in light of what we're seeing.
The international numbers tell a different story
The picture becomes clearer when we look at how the movie performed overseas across its first two weekends. "Five Nights at Freddy's" opened to $52.6 million internationally and took in an additional $35.6 million in its second weekend, representing a 54% decline week-to-week. That is far more in line with what a movie like this should expect to drop under more usual circumstances. Peacock is primarily a U.S. service (stripped-down versions of it exist in a few European countries, but they didn't get "Five Nights at Freddy's"), which means overseas moviegoers had no other choice than to go to the theater to see the film. Either that or turn to piracy, but that's another conversation entirely.
While we can't definitively say what would have happened if Universal had released "Five Nights at Freddy's" exclusively in theaters for its first few weeks, it seems pretty fair to conclude that the day-and-date streaming release impacted the bottom line here. It's also worth pointing out that, aside from the Peacock release, all other indicators suggest that the target audience is digging this movie.
Sure, the majority of mainstream movie critics weren't having it with the film (read our review here), audiences have been singing a different tune. The movie has an A- CinemaScore, which is exceptionally rare for a horror movie, and it holds an 88% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which stands in stark contrast to the 30% critical approval rating. This is a franchise that was made popular by Gen Z and those are the people who have flocked to the film, be it in theaters or on Peacock. Some might argue that, since this was a film largely made for younger audiences, doing an exclusive theatrical release out of the gate might have limited the audience potential. Some might even go so far as to call it gatekeeping of a sort.
Trying to save a sinking ship
I'm not saying to never release the movie on Peacock — and I'm not even saying it needed to be exclusive to theaters for months like the days of old. I am saying, however, that it's clear the studio has a winner on its hands and every dime of money from ticket sales from here on out is pure profit for the studio. That profit pool seemingly could have been larger with an exclusive theatrical window. Audience members who wanted to wait could have waited to stream it at home.
It wasn't all that long ago when it was an accepted industry standard that movies went to theaters first, then made their way to home video, and then eventually cable/TV. I understand that times have changed but I also think that the continued streaming wars have led to some bad business decisions at major corporations such as NBCUniversal. Right now it feels like they are trying to save a sinking ship. "Freddy's" could have made them more money right now and provided added value to Peacock down the line. The way I see it, all they did was lose out on potential earnings.
Again, I'm not advocating for corporate greed here. But I also believe that the overall health of the movie business is best served by not foolishly devoting too many resources to streaming services that are not making money. To that end, Peacock lost $2.5 billion last year and is expected to lose even more this year. As it stands, the service has just 28 million paid subscribers — far fewer than that of rival services such as Netflix or Disney+. So, why take money away from a sure thing like "Freddy's" in an attempt to drive subscribers to Peacock? Is that really going to be enough to move the needle in a meaningful way? I think not.
"Five Nights at Freddy's" is in theaters and streaming on Peacock now.