Blumhouse is officially developing another video game movie, which might be the perfect replacement for Five Nights at Freddy's. Jason Blum's horror production company has been triumphant with its adaptation of Scott Cawthon's young adult horror games, with Five Nights at Freddy's becoming a box office and streaming success. Blumhouse will release Five Nights at Freddy's 2 later this year, but the studio is already looking to its next video game adaptation.
Variety has confirmed that Blumhouse is developing an adaptation of Phasmophobia, the 2020 horror game from Kinetic Games. Blumhouse is partnering with Atomic Monster (James Wan's production house) to produce the movie. No creatives or release dates were attached to the announcement, suggesting the Phasmophobia film is still several years away.
Phasmophobia rose to viral success during the pandemic, particularly with streamers on Twitch and YouTube. The game allows players to team up with friends online and investigate paranormal happenings. Phasmophobia's speech recognition function is one of the game's standout features, as it grants the ghosts in the game the ability to understand and be triggered by specific keywords spoken by players. The player's goal in Phasmophobia is to identify the ghost haunting the premises before it kills them.
Phasmophobia joins several other video game adaptations in development right now, including Amazon's Mass Effect series, A24's Elden Ring movie, and recurring series like HBO's The Last of Us and Prime Video's Fallout.
Why Phasmophobia Is The Perfect Successor to FNAF For Blumhouse
As video game adaptations become more popular in Hollywood, it makes sense for Blumhouse to select Phasmophobia as its next IP to adapt. Blumhouse and Atomic Monster are two of Hollywood's most popular horror studios, so an adaptation of Phasmophobia under these two production houses seems like a match made in heaven.
Similar to Five Nights at Freddy's, Phasmophobia relies on survival mechanics and jump scares, making Blumhouse's new horror adaptation a perfect follow-up to its FNAF film success. The games are similar in tone and genre, and they're also both popular with young adult and teen demographics, meaning Blumhouse can aim for a similar target audience as FNAF with its Phasmophobia adaptation.
Another similarity that Phasmophobia and FNAF share is their simple stories (or lack thereof).
The FNAF games place players in the shoes of a security guard responsible for watching the monitors on a haunted Pizzeria where animatronics come to life after dark.
The story is based on a structured gameplay loop that takes place over several nights, but doesn't necessarily have an in-depth narrative to follow (although fans online have taken FNAF lore and run with it). When Blumhouse adapted FNAF to a film, it maintained this basic premise but infused the story with original characters and a more traditional story.
In Phasmophobia, players are given a variety of haunted locations, types of ghosts to identify, and gameplay objects and tools to complete their objective. There is no ongoing story beyond the mission to determine the ghost so it can be exorcised later.
While this is not a problem in the game, fans have lamented not knowing more about the world in which the game is set.
With a film adaptation, Blumhouse can flesh this idea out more, find a way to build connections between some of these scenarios, and expand the world and characters. The studio will also need to adapt core gameplay references, like Phasmophobia's voice recognition, into the film to appease fans.
Phasmophobia's arrival does not mean the end of Five Nights at Freddy's at Blumhouse. Depending on whether FNAF 2 is a success in December, it's likely the studio will want to continue the franchise long into the future.
However, should Phasmophobia prove to be a success as well, it will provide Blumhouse with two major franchises and place the studio as one of the best video game adaptation companies for horror games.
