Plenty of video games have a film adaptation announced shortly after the game becomes popular, but the vast majority never see the light of day. The list of video game franchises that a filmmaker or movie studio had the rights to at one point, with things never moving beyond that initial announcement, is a long one, and includes “Call of Duty,” “BioShock,” “Metroid,” “The Sims,” “Half-Life,” “Heavy Rain,” “Crazy Taxi,” “Asteroids,” and many more. Some, like “The Last of Us,” “Halo,” and “Castlevania,” at least eventually got television shows — but most aren’t so lucky.
When Warner Bros. announced in 2015 that it was working on a “Five Nights at Freddy’s” movie, it was impossible to know whether it would actually go anywhere or not. Fans were at least optimistic that Scott Cawthon was involved, with him telling The Hollywood Reporter, “The story really lends itself to being a movie, and it taps into a largely unexplored niche of horror that a lot of people will be able to relate to.” Beyond that, all there was left to do was sit back and wait for updates — and to hope that there would actually be updates to share in the first place.
