Blumhouse May Be Starting a Renaissance of Horror Game Adaptations

Within the last decade, Blumhouse has been a key figure in helping horror movies become a bigger part of mainstream pop culture. With classic franchises like Halloween and The Exorcist under its belt alongside its own originals such as The Purge and M3GAN, the production company continues to expand. One of its next big projects is an adaptation of Scott Cawthorn’s popular video game series Five Nights at Freddy’s, and if Jason Blum has his way, it won’t be the only game that Blumhouse tackles.

In a recent interview with Discussing Film, Blum talked about his excitement at the surge of video game adaptations that have led to Super Mario Bros. being a billion-dollar hit. During that talk, he mentioned that he was “definitely looking forward to finding more games that are popular and that we could turn into horror movies.” At least one of those is already known: back in March, the studio revealed it and James Wan’s production company Atomic Monster were planning to adapt Behaviour Interactive’s multiplayer slasher game Dead by Daylight for film.

Blum’s comment is notable since earlier this year, Blumhouse also announced the creation of its own video game division. Though a project hasn’t been announced yet, it’s been made clear that the company plans to keep the “make it cheap, but make it well” strategy it uses for films and create games with “small” budgets of $10 million or less. It wouldn’t be surprising if part of its strategy also involved making a game for a specific franchise (either one that’s dormant or still relatively active), then boosting that franchise’s profile even further with a film. Konami is already doing something like that with Silent Hill, with multiple games in development alongside an interactive TV show and another movie.

So far, 2023 has seen a surge in triple-A horror game releases with releases such as Amnesia: The Bunker and remakes for Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 (which has been particularly successful for Capcom). With Alan Wake II and a remake for Silent Hill 2 both set to come out this year, there’s a sense that the horror genre is well and truly back in the blockbuster games space. And with how game developers are so eager to get their work adapted to other mediums, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if Blumhouse turned its eye to one of these series, or something else with a good amount of clout.

Five Nights at Freddy’s will release in theaters on October 27.

[via IGN]

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