Five Nights at Freddy's 2 Scares Up the Year’s No. 2 Horror Debut, but the Original Still Reigns

Horror is still eating at the box office buffet. The latest plate-cleaner: Five Nights at Freddy's 2, which rolled into December and started rewriting stats while going head-to-head with a stack of big sequels.

The numbers that matter

• Opening weekend haul: $63M domestic, $109M worldwide.
• Second-biggest horror opening of the year, behind Conjuring: Last Rites.
• Per Deadline, it now holds the biggest opening for any post-Thanksgiving theatrical release.
• Also the top December horror opening, jumping past Scream 2.
• Third-best PG-13 horror opening ever, behind the first Five Nights at Freddy's and World War Z.
• It did not match the first movie's $160M global opening weekend in 2023, but it still won this weekend's sequel showdown domestically.
• Specifically, it outran Disney's Zootopia 2 - which had a huge first week - and the musical Wicked: For Good at the domestic box office.
• In fourth place: Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution, a special event release ahead of Jujutsu Kaisen season 3.

Why this is landing with extra impact

The timing is spicy. After last week brought Netflix's purchase of Warner Bros - a deal shaking the whole town - Freddy's 2 is being taken as a vote of confidence for movie theaters. Universal's domestic distribution chief Jim Orr put it like this:

"With Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Emma Tammi, Scott Cawthon and our great partners at Blumhouse delivered a raucous, thrilling, scary sequel that our very enthusiastic fanbase could not wait to come see and experience in theatres around the world this weekend. These spectacular box office results were exactly what the industry needed."

That is a studio exec saying the quiet part out loud: a big PG-13 horror win in early December, and right after the holiday crush, is exactly the morale boost studios and theaters wanted.

What the sequel actually does

Director Emma Tammi is back with returning stars Josh Hutcherson and Piper Rubio, plus Elizabeth Lail. Story-wise, we pick up one year after the first film. Mike, the ex-Freddy Fazbear security guard, is trying to keep life normal for his little sister Abby, with Vanessa hovering as a possible love interest. Meanwhile, the old Freddy's has morphed into a kitschy local legend, and the town is days away from the inaugural FazFest. So, yeah, probably not a chill week for anyone named Fazbear.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is in theaters now. And yes, there is a post-credits scene, so do not sprint for the exits when the lights come up.