The Five Nights at Freddy’s SNAFU: Scott Cawthon, Controversy, and Earned Media Strategy

Cosplay Vogue1, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Jealousy is bitter poison for the soul. As it so happens, jealousy explains the current conflagration surrounding Scott Cawthon, the creator of the Five Nights at Freddy’s massive video game and multi-media franchise. For years, a FNaF (pronounced “fa-naf”) movie has been trying to get off the ground. It was announced a bit ago that Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions had signed on to make the movie a reality, with the occasional updates since. This month, Scott officially confirmed the movie had started production. And the knives came out… But some important background first.

As a movie buff and occasional gamer¹, video game movies are rife with problems. Grading on a very generous curve, the best video game movies are just OK. The most infamous examples are flaming piles of excrement. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was so terrible, Nintendo hasn’t greenlit a Hollywood production of its IP until very recently. Unfortunately, it falls to Illumination, the company who made Minions world renowned. God help us all. I want a Zelda Netflix² show. I’ll write it myself if I have to! I bring this up for one main reason: The studio behind the film. But… Not there yet.

What is FNaF? That’s a good question, random reader! It started with an indie video game of the same name, developed pretty much solely by Scott Cawthon. Horror in theme. Basically, what if the animatronics at Chuck E. Cheese came alive at night and tried to kill the night security guard? And what if that same guard was stupid enough to come back for five nights?³ That simple concept of a man stuck in a chair cursed to be repeatedly killed by the same five animatronics spawned an insane number of sequels, all made by Cawthon. From there, the lore expanded to books. Since all were written by Cawthon, they are presumably all canon. Let’s move on now, shall we?

Ever since FNaF took over the Internet for a bit years ago, it has seen endless merch and earned media from dozens of Game Theory episodes to a Rhett & Link song featuring Markiplier. We got posters and shirts and chibi plushes and Funko action figures. I have never actually played the games, but I have watched many a Let’s Play and the aforementioned Game Theory episodes.⁴ But I do love action figures. I am also fluent in memes, being heavily immersed in Internet nerd culture that I am. Five Nights at Freddy’s was everywhere, like Ray Bloody Purchase.⁵ Warner Bros., now owned by multi-national corporation AT&T, snatched up the movie rights early (for I imagine a hefty sum.) The animatronics were going to be designed and made by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. As an avid Muppets fan since before I can even remember, I was super excited.

But then… Nothing!

Jason Blum eventually picked up the reins, being the man who got Whiplash made and realized horror movies pretty much always make money. What do you think he mostly makes? Blumhouse Productions is an ROI money printer. Get Out? Not only did that win an Oscar for first-time director Jordan Peele, it was the highest ROI movie released that year. Insanely profitable. Jason Blum will make a profitable and likely at least moderately fun movie out of the “sit and wait to be killed by possessed animatronics” simulator. Due to Five Nights at Freddy’s, that’s actually a pretty common genre.

I wish Cawthon and Blum all the luck. With all the video game sequels and book lore, this could become quite the juggernaut movie franchise. This is not where the story ends. The movie has officially started production, as I mentioned in the first paragraph. Scott Cawthon is known for eschewing politics in his games. As it invariably means, Cawthon is a dreaded Republican. And, GASP, using his millions, has given to conservative causes and Republican politicians! And, quelle horror, HE’S PRO-LIFE!! If none of this shocks you, you’re not an always online video game journalist. As if continuing to prove GamerGate right, these video game journalists — encouraged by the “in the club” video game developers⁶ that are nowhere near as successful as Cawthon — are trying to cancel him. They obviously aren’t going to succeed. They’ve tried this countless times already. He’s the only developer of this series. They’re all his babies.

And Jason Blum couldn’t have bought a better earned media strategy. This will only engender to make the film “controversial,” which worked beautifully for Joker, a movie derided as a GamerGate incel fantasy that would inspire mass shootings that ended up being about how even the worst people don’t start that way. Joker was honestly pretty progressive-to-libertarian in a superficial way. It made the director of The Hangover trilogy untold millions when it was the first R-rated movie to gross over a billion dollars at the box office. The controversy certainly helped.

When the first Five Nights at Freddy’s trailer drops and when the movie gets released to critics, the same snafu will start all over again, multiple times even. To unthinkably valuable earned media… Morons. Just keep doing what you’re doing. You’ll only make the millionaire Scott Cawthon a multimillionaire. Even more money for Scott Cawthon’s preferred political causes! Congratulations: You’ve played yourself.

1. I’m a Nintendo boy with occasional forays into indie titles.
2. Other streaming platforms are available.
3. There is actually a sixth night in the game.
4. Until they reached Smug Alert-levels of fart huffing.
5. Toast of London, Netflix.
6. Those with progressive politics who fill their terrible selling but well-reviewed games with these stupid politics…