Five Nights at Freddy’s: Matthew Lillard would be excited to come back for a sequel

Matthew Lillard would be excited to reprise his Five Nights at Freddy’s character William Afton if a sequel is made

The video game adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s (read our review HERE) quickly became Blumhouse Productions’ highest-grossing movie when it reached theatres and the Peacock streaming service back in October, surpassing the likes of Split, The Invisible Man, The Black Phone, M3GAN, the recent Halloween sequel trilogy, and the Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and The Purge franchises with its haul of $295 million. So we should be hearing a sequel announcement any day now… and cast member Matthew Lillard says he would be excited to come back for another Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Lillard told Syfy Wire he would love to reprise the role of William Afton. “If it does come back, and if I’m lucky to be brought back, sure, yeah. I mean, I barely got to touch him, right? I got to kill my daughter, but we know nothing about him. We know nothing about his history, about his journey. All those things that the fans have filled in for year after year, I’m excited to, with and [director Emma Tammi], fill in all those pieces that the fans have always wondered about. How do we fill out expectations and how do we fill out the lore? I’ll be excited to be a piece of that story.

Five Nights at Freddy’s stars Lillard alongside Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Game), Mary Stuart Masterson (Benny & Joon), Elizabeth Lail (You), Piper Rubio (Holly & Ivy), and Kat Conner Sterling (A Week Away). The film follows a troubled security guard as he begins working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. While spending his first night on the job, he realizes the night shift at Freddy’s won’t be so easy to make it through.

Stunt performers Kevin Foster (WandaVision), Jade Kindar-Martin (Interview with the Vampire), and Jess Weiss (Mayfair Witches) play the animatronics Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, and Chica.

The video game takes place in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a darker version of Chuck-E-Cheese, where an animatronic animal band performs kiddy songs by day, and goes on murderous rampages by night. The goal of the game is survive a night locked inside, knowing that a furry death machine might jump out of the dark at any moment.

The adaptation was originally set up at Warner Bros., where Gil Kenan (Monster House) was going to direct the film from a screenplay he was writing with Tyler Burton Smith (the Child’s Play remake). Then the project moved over to Blumhouse, where Chris Columbus (Home Alone) was attached to direct it for several years. But now it has gone into production with Emma Tammi – director of The Wind, Into the Dark: Delivered, and Into the Dark: Blood Moon – at the helm, working from a screenplay she wrote with Seth Cuddeback (Mateo) and video game creator Scott Cawthon. Tragedy Girls writers Tyler MacIntyre and Chris Lee Hill share story credit with Cawthon.

Five Nights at Freddy’s was produced by Blumhouse, in association with Striker Entertainment. Cawthon is a producer alongside Blumhouse founder Jason Blum. Russell Binder is executive producing. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop handled the special effects that help bring the homicidal animatronic animals to life on the screen.

Would you like to see a Five Nights at Freddy’s sequel with Matthew Lillard in the cast? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Matthew Willard five nights at freddy's
Source: Syfy Wire

About the Author

Cody is a news editor and film critic, focused on the horror arm of JoBlo.com, and writes scripts for videos that are released through the JoBlo Originals and JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channels. In his spare time, he's a globe-trotting digital nomad, runs a personal blog called Life Between Frames, and writes novels and screenplays.