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Five Nights at Freddy’s is a video game about a security guard, so it’s only fitting that the film adaptation would suffer security issues. Fans of the video game franchise were hungry for any bits of information they could get on the 2023 horror film, and the scoopers were relentless.

“On set we kept on having to increase security because people kept trying to figure out how to get photos. And all the leaks,” Chica performer Jess Weiss says during a FNAF spotlight panel at Animate x Nightmare Weekend Richmond 2025.

“People would be outside across the street from the studio with cameras trying to take pictures through the windows into the rehearsal space. So, we had to stack boxes in front of the windows. At one point, we were shooting the exterior of the restaurant, and they brought out all these trucks to try and block the view,” Freddy performer Kevin Foster says.

“It didn’t work,” Weiss adds. “All you’ve got to do is go between two trucks,” Foster says.

Maybe they should’ve had killer animatronics patrolling the perimeter. They’re pretty effective in the video game.

The Five Nights at Freddy's phenomenon is lasting longer than five nights. Get up to speed, with how to play all the FNAF games in order, why Five Nights at Freddy's is the ideal starter kit for a kid wanting to get into horror, details on the characters and lore, getting to know the FNAF movie animatronics, how the movie fits in the canon of the games, and how Chuck E. Cheese is responding.

Can't get enough? We have recommendations for five movies to watch after Five Nights at Freddy's.