Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 was absolutely savaged by critics, even more than the first one, and yet, as expected, audiences did not care in the least. The result? Combined with its box office returns, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 has set a Rotten Tomatoes-based record.
The long and short of it is that with its 12% on Rotten Tomatoes, one of the lowest scores in video game adaptation history, it made $63 million at the domestic box office, even beating out Zootopia 2’s $43 million in its third weekend, which is impressive given that the latter film is about to hit a billion in revenue already.
This is the worst-scored Rotten Tomatoes video game adaptation to produce this level of returns in its opening weekend. It’s not the highest adaptation opening weekend, of course. Minecraft opened with $162 million and The Super Mario Bros. Movie with $146 million. The difference there is that half or more of critics liked those films, as opposed to 88% who hated Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. I’ve already written about how it set a record for the largest gap between a critic score (12%) and audience score (88%) in history, showcasing the passion of fans for a film that caters to them without the need to be well, a good movie.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Rotten Tomatoes
I’ve been trying to find out if any movies with this low of a score have made this much at the box office. You can’t quite compare them 1:1, but the most prominent example appears to be Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016. That had a dismal 28% Rotten Tomatoes score, but it had a $166 million opening weekend as fans turned out to see the two storied heroes duke it out. To a lesser extent, there’s something like Big Momma’s House 2 with a 5%(!), but it still opened with $27.7 million in 2006.
For its video game compatriots, yeah, nothing is close to what Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is doing with this near record-low score for a major adaptation. The most recent, comparable example would be the Borderlands movie, which had a 10% Rotten Tomatoes score and opened with just $8.6 million. And that’s a much, much larger franchise than FNAF. 2008’s Max Payne had a 16% score and opened with $17.6 million. Assassin’s Creed? 18% for a $10 million opening. The closest equivalent I could find is 2001’s Tomb Raider at a 21% opening with $47 million.
With that opening total, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 likely doubled its budget already, and it stands to reason that Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 is a sure thing, especially with how this last film ended, very much implying more is coming (and hopefully, given that it was such an anticlimax). We’ll likely hear more about that in a little while.
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