Ever since the teaser post in April of 2015, Five Nights at Freddy’s [FNaF] fans have been anticipating the movie’s official release date announcement. However, the production of the movie was excessively private and nothing was really “confirmed” until it was officially announced as complete on April 3, 2023. The official release date will be October 27, 2023, as Jason Blum, the founder of Blumhouse, announced via Twitter.

Teasers have been released ever since the announcement. Fans have been creating concept trailers with some being accidentally interpreted as official trailers; regardless, the official FNaF trailer hasn’t been fully released. In fact, it was recently just leaked. 

Fans have mixed feelings about it. Some have been impatient, waiting for the movie for years, so they give the leaked trailer link a click. However, others seem to resist the temptation and shame the clickers for watching it, saying they are disrespecting the creator of FNaF, Scott Cawthon, and his hard work.

So, Cawthon came forward on Reddit to contribute his response.  

“I know that Blumhouse and Universal (and me too) have all worked very hard to make something really exciting to share. So the thought of a first-look being spoiled was frustrating and I was really dreading coming home to see what all had happened while I was away.

To my surprise though, I got home and found a lot of YouTube channels refusing to do videos on [the trailer leak], Twitter channels refusing to repost it, countless members refusing to watch it and moderators taking a stand against allowing discussion on it.

It’s really difficult, if not impossible, to prevent people from trying to spoil things for everyone else, but it was really encouraging to see the fanbase pull together and push back against it. For those of you who resisted watching it, I think you’ll be much happier when you’re able to see a finished product that is edited and polished, with VFX and proper sounds.

So, to the fanbase, and to all of the . . . people who pushed back against this; thank you. I started my day at Humanity -1, but ended the day at Humanity +100.” Cawthon said. 

Some people refuse to watch the trailer as others watch it to immediately critique it, or just out of pure curiosity & excitement. Either way, it’s not difficult to find it on Twitter. 

Mr. Damani Brown, the Applications Trainer and eSports Club sponsor, came forward to comment on the trailer leak. 

“There’s nothing that can be done about leaks, I’ll be honest,” Mr. Brown said. “GTA VI was leaked a couple of months ago; they had footage of it. Now there’s a game called Skate that’s in beta right now and people are leaking it all over the place. There’s just no way to fully protect it. 

It sucks, ‘cause as an artist, now you’re pulled in to ‘now I gotta make some new choices.’ For all we know, it was internally leaked. There’s stuff that happens all the time where they do that to build up hype. I think [the movie] was announced when I was in college… I think the same thing happened with Slenderman. I will be honest, I am very hesitant about video game movies; they are typically terrible.” 

“It’s clearly fitting, I will say that,” Damani Brown said upon being shown the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie poster.

However, just a few days later, Blumhouse and Universal Pictures released an official teaser for the movie on Youtube. Unlike the leak of the trailer, it hyped up the entire fanbase and had clear & excellent quality. More and more influencers are spreading the word; even before hitting the 24-hour mark, the teaser reached 8.1 million views and scored #1 in Trending on Youtube. 

On the same day of the trailer’s release, YouTubers were already making videos of themselves reacting to and analyzing the trailer. One of these people was popular YouTuber and media theorist Matthew Patrick, otherwise known as “Matpat,” “The Game Theorist,” or “The Film Theorist.”