Revisions and rewrites are common practice in the film industry, though some ideas definitely require a little more fine-tuning than others. Video game adaptation Five Night at Freddy’s (based on the series of the same name), for example, scrapped not one, two or even three provisional scripts, but nine, no doubt placing it in the running for some sort of undesirable award.
The troubling number of project restarts was revealed recently by none other than series creator Scott Cawthon, who’s shared the basic premise of each pitch with fans over on Reddit. According to the post, several of these discarded prototypes were penned by “big directors” as well as himself and hired writers. While there’s far too much information in the thread (link below, for those with time on their hands for a lengthy read) to go through here, the reason for each script’s rejection largely boiled down to a singular issue: straying too far from the source material.
Thankfully, though, that string of disappointing failures is finally at its end, as Cawthon confirms that a tenth (and final) script, dubbed the “Mike” screenplay, is the winning formula. That being the case, he declines to share the basic premise for this particular story, though does describe the plot as taking all the best bits from previous ideas and mixing them together. “It’s fun, it’s scary and it has a great central story!” he says, before confirming the news that fans have been waiting oh-so-long to hear.
Five Nights At Freddy’s is scheduled to begin filming next spring, meaning a theatrical release can likely be expected in late 2021/early 2022. Watch this space for further updates.