Despite a Mauling From Critics, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Is a Smash Hit at the Box Office and on Course to Be One of the Biggest Horror Movies of 2025

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 has secured a box office win despite a critical mauling.

In 2023, Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s, which adapts the hugely popular video game series by Scott Cawthon, became the highest-grossing horror film of the year. Now, two years later, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 has earnt a huge $109 million at the global box office during launch weekend. While that isn’t as big as Five Nights at Freddy’s $160 million box office debut, it’s enough to take the number one spot at the domestic box office with an impressive $63 million haul.

The box office success comes amid one of the biggest Rotten Tomatoes critic-audience score divides ever. On the review score aggregator, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 has just 12% on the Tomatometer from 84 reviews from critics, whereas it has 88% on the Popcornmeter, which tracks user review sentiment. IGN’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 review returned a 3/10. We said: “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 gives sequels, video game adaptations, and gateway horror movies a bad name.”

But Universal Pictures said it expects continued box office momentum for the film, “fueled by strong social media buzz and word-of-mouth.”

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 secured a number of domestic box office records, including becoming the second-largest horror opening of 2025 behind only The Conjuring: Last Rites. With this debut, Blumhouse–Atomic Monster now holds four of the top 10 biggest horror openings of the year (The Conjuring: Last Rites, Five Nights At Freddy’s 2, Black Phone 2, and The Monkey).

Domestically, it’s also the highest opening weekend for a PG-13 horror film in 2025, surpassing Predator: Badlands, and it had a record-breaking post-Thanksgiving opening, now the highest ever at the domestic box office, ahead of The Last Samurai. And finally, it’s the biggest December horror opening domestically, topping Scream 2.

Scream star Matthew Lillard, who plays William Afton, has already spoken about his hope that Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 gets made, and with this box office success it now seems likely. “Our hope is that we get to do three films. That’s always been the plan. Everything is dependent on how the movie does in theaters,” Lillard said.

Lillard was recently in the headlines for responding to an insult from Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill director Quentin Tarantino, saying “it f***ing sucks.” With Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 out the door, he’s set to reprise his role as Stuart “Stu” Macher in Scream 7, and will play a villain in MCU Disney+ show, Daredevil: Born Again Season 2.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].