This year’s edition of CinemaCon brought the first look at Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, the highly anticipated sequel which will take audiences back to the world inspired by the video games created by Scott Cawthon. After the first installment became such a massive success at the global box office for Blumhouse, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to see the studio turning the adaptation into an expanding franchise. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will introduce new characters who will keep audiences on the edge of their seats, and these animatronics are hungry for vengeance, while nothing will stop them from getting what they want.
There are plenty of expectations already set for Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. The sequel will follow a risky adaptation that was looking to establish a new horror franchise for a major Hollywood studio, while also taking story elements and a supernatural plot from independent video games. After the first movie turned out to be a success, there are some things Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will need to get right in order to consolidate Scott Cawthon’s creation on the big screen, and it all goes back to the video game of the same name.
The Puppet and The Mangle
Two of the most popular characters introduced in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 were the Puppet and the Mangle. Puppet couldn’t be fooled by the Freddy Fazbear mask that kept the player safe from danger when crossing paths with other animatronics, and in order to stop the vengeful spirit, players had to remotely wind a music box that kept the Puppet dormant. It might be hard to translate this gameplay mechanic to the big screen, but director Emma Tammi has proven that she has the skill to take what Scott Cawthon created and turn it into an engaging cinematic experience.
The Mangle was presented as what was originally meant to be Toy Foxy, but the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 video game explained that children who came to the restaurant took it apart constantly. The deformed robot is terrifying to look at in the video game because it doesn’t move like the others and, hopefully, the upcoming movie will be able to transmit that eerie feeling to general audiences. These characters are crucial when it comes to allowing Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 to stand apart from the first installment of the series.
All About the Lore
The second Five Night at Freddy’s game was the one that changed everything for the storytelling of the franchise. The complete notion that William Afton (played by Matthew Lillard in the movie) was killing children systematically and hiding the corpses in the bodies of the animatronics was brought to an entirely different level in this game, and it included multiple restaurant locations and a serial killer who constantly evaded the police. While the first Five Nights at Freddy’s movie introduced William Afton and his crimes, the sequel has to make sure that audiences are aware of how sinister the character actually is. Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is going to have a really hard time if he has to deal with the villain again.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 also gave gamers the first hints regarding how evolved possession can be in this universe. The Puppet was significantly smarter than the rest of the animatronics, not only because that spirit wasn’t fooled by the Freddy mask used by the security guard to distract the other robots, but the Puppet was later depicted in the game franchise as one of the most powerful ghosts in the entire series. Emma Tammi and the team at Blumhouse have the opportunity to raise the stakes in the upcoming sequel.
The Expanding Roster
The new characters from Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will force Mike, Abby (Piper Rubio), and Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) to watch their backs. In the video game the movie will be based on, these robots were equipped with facial recognition software to spot potential threats against the customers of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. That technology was an aspect of the story that wasn’t explored deeply in the video games, but the upcoming theatrical sequel has the chance to give even long-time fans of the franchise something they’ve never seen before. The sky is the limit when it comes to the storytelling potential of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, as the sequel that will introduce the Toy Animatronics to general audiences before the end of the year.
The Puppet, the Mangle, and the Toy Animatronics sound like very interesting additions to the roster of possessed robots who will roam the halls of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, but Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 also introduced unpredictable characters when it was launched for computers and mobile devices more than a decade ago. Ghosts resembling animatronics and even full-sized versions of Balloon Boy were seen in the sequel upon release. Will the team at Blumhouse bring all of these creatures to the big screen? Or will only a few lucky animatronics make their theatrical debut when Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 makes its way to cinemas?
Viewers will find out when Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 hits theaters on December 5th.
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