Movies

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Director Goes All-In on Fans, Not Critics

written by Leo Hartwell

October 17, 2025 6:21 pm

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Director Goes All-In on Fans, Not Critics — Image credit: Legion-Media

With Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 looming, director Emma Tammi says the sequel is built for FNAF diehards, not critics—doubling down on lore and payoff after the 2023 Josh Hutcherson-led hit. Here’s why winning the fanbase matters more than chasing reviews.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is on the way, and director Emma Tammi is making it clear who she’s aiming to please this time: the people who showed up in droves the first time.

At New York Comic Con, Tammi addressed the whole critics-vs-fans thing around the first movie. In 2023, her FNAF adaptation got dinged by reviewers (a 33% 'Rotten' on Rotten Tomatoes), but fans turned it into a monster hit anyway — $297 million worldwide on a $20 million budget, making it Blumhouse’s biggest movie to date. So, yeah, no shock she’s doubling down on the crowd that actually showed up.

'The critics sometimes are with you, sometimes they’re not. It’s an impossible endeavor to try to satisfy them... we were just focusing on making a film we were excited about and that the fan base would really dig.'

If you missed the first one: Josh Hutcherson plays a pretty messed-up guy who takes a night security job at the abandoned Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, only to discover the animatronics aren’t exactly in sleep mode. It’s a video game adaptation that leaned into the lore, and the fanbase rewarded it.

The sequel is stacking the cast with familiar faces and a few eyebrow-raising additions — including some voice casting that feels like a wink directly at the fans.

Returning: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Matthew Lillard, Theodus Crane
New to the sequel: Skeet Ulrich, Mckenna Grace, Teo Briones, Freddy Carter
Voices announced at NYCC: Kellen Goff as Toy Freddy, Megan Fox as Toy Chica, and FNAF theory YouTuber MatPat as Toy Bonnie

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 hits theaters on December 5, 2025. Given how the first one performed, chasing fan satisfaction over critical approval feels like the most obvious play on the board.