Josh Hutcherson Teases a Bigger, Scarier Five Nights at Freddy’s 2

Last year, Blumhouse released its film adaptation of the Five Nights at Freddy’s video game series, and like most Blumhouse things, it made a lot of money. A sequel’s currently locked in for 2025, and leading man Josh Hutcherson recently shed some light on what to expect from next year’s followup.

If you were someone who felt the first movie wasn’t at all scary, the star told Esquire that Five Nights 2 will do much better in that regard. Hand in hand with that, he said the film would “have a lot of fun” with its “wacky, over-the-top”  source material without losing the first movie’s down-to-earth nature. That approach was something they fought for last time, and Hutcherson hopes there’ll be a good balance between “building this world and expanding it in a really cool way but also making sure the characters stay really grounded.”

Each Five Nights at Freddy’s game features new animatronics to jumpscare the hell out of players, and that’ll also be true for the upcoming movie. Hutcherson didn’t disclose which ones would be brought over, but he said there’d be more animatronics this time around, and emphasized “different” ones would appear as well. (Beginning with Five Nights 2, some animatronics have had alternate versions appear throughout the sequel and spinoff games.) And more animatronics means “much bigger, higher stakes” than before. “The world just opens up in a big way,” he continued, “I think the fans are gonna flip for it.”

Before the first Five Nights movies came out, Blumhouse said it had every intention of making this a long-term series. Hutcherson’s character Mike appears throughout the sequels, so could he be a long-term protagonist for the films? The actor isn’t sure yet, but he assured that he likes playing the character and thinks there are “endless possibilities” to explore. “I love working in this world, and our director Emma Tammi is phenomenal. […] This could have a very potentially long run and it could be a lot of fun, but at this point we’re focusing on the second movie. We’ll see what comes after that.”

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 comes to theaters on December 5, 2025. Hutcherson’s full Esquire interview can be read here.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.