A new update has me worried that Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 didn’t learn an important lesson from the critical failure of the first movie. The upcoming Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will hit theaters on December 5 and will likely be a major hit. Blumhouse’s other 2025 movies have underperformed at the box office, so this highly anticipated sequel being a success will be a must-needed win for the studio.
However, will Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 be a hit with critics as well? The answer to this question is much more uncertain, since the first movie only has a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. Since Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is written and directed by the same people as the first movie, it’s highly possible that critics won’t have anything positive to say about Freddy Fazbear and his fellow animatronics.
Matthew Lillard, who starred in the first movie and will return in the sequel, has claimed that franchise creator Scott Cawthon listened to fans’ concerns while writing Five Nights At Freddy’s 2, which may bode well for the sequel. However, a recent update about Five Nights at Freddy’s 2‘s rating suggests that it is repeating the first movie’s biggest mistake.
Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 Is Rated PG-13, Just Like The First Movie
Without a doubt, the biggest complaint about the first movie was that it wasn’t as violent or scary as the games. At times, it honestly didn’t even feel like Five Nights at Freddy’s was trying to be a horror movie. At several points in the film, it got too caught up in the lore of the video games and forgot to give audiences the scares that they were expecting.
The fact that Cawthon wrote the first movie helps explain why it dealt with the lore of the franchise so much. As the creator of the video games, Cawthon clearly loves the backstories of all the terrifying animatronics who reside in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place. It’s nice that the creator of the games gets to write the movies, but Cawthon needs to remember that this is a horror franchise.
The first Five Nights at Freddy’s movie barely included any jump scares, which are a staple of the video games. Additionally, there was barely any violence, which is not what you would necessarily expect from this kind of horror film. Five Nights at Freddy’s rating might explain the film’s lack of violence.
The first movie was rated PG-13 for “strong violent content, bloody images and language.” The relatively tame rating ensured that younger audiences could watch the film, but made it so that it couldn’t be nearly as violent as horror movies with an R-rating. Unfortunately, history is repeating itself since Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is rated PG-13, as well.
The sequel is rated PG-13 for “violent content, terror and some language.” It’s worth noting that the term “bloody images” is left out of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’s rating description, which means it might even be more tame than the first movie. This is incredibly disappointing, and suggests that Cawthon and the rest of the creative team didn’t learn from their mistakes on the first movie after all.
Why Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 Isn’t Rated R
Even though Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 being rated PG-13 is disappointing, it shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise. Blumhouse may be responsible for producing and distributing some of the scariest movies of all time, but the studio needs to make money, and PG-13 movies tend to be much more profitable than R-rated films.
The Five Nights at Freddy’s video games are played by a lot of teenagers, and Blumhouse clearly wants to market the movie to this demographic. If the sequel was rated R, a lot of these gamers wouldn’t be able to see it in theaters, which would undeniably impact its total box office haul.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 potentially being a slightly tamer horror movie is the cost of making it accessible for most age groups. Without a doubt, Blumhouse is hoping that Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 can surpass the box office haul of the first movie, which made $291 million following its October 2023 release (via Box Office Mojo).
The first movie’s box office haul is extra impressive since it was released simultaneously on Peacock. The fact that a lot of people chose to go to the theaters to see Five Nights at Freddy’s, rather than watching it from the comfort of their own homes, proved to Blumhouse that this could become one of the biggest horror movie franchises in the world.
Since Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is releasing exclusively in theaters, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if it grosses significantly more money than the first movie, assuming it resonates with audiences. Blumhouse likely did everything it could to position Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 to dominate the box office, and this unfortunately included making it PG-13.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
- Release Date
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December 5, 2025
- Director
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Emma Tammi
- Writers
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Seth Cuddeback
- Producers
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Jason Blum, Scott Cawthon
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Matthew Lillard
William Afton
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