News of the Week: Five Nights At Freddy's Smashes Box Office Records

We’re into November, and fall is in full force and creeping toward winter. The jack-o-lanterns and witch hats are being put away in favor of turkey and stuffing, with Thanksgiving later this month. As we get into the holiday season, movie news is keeping up. This week finds us with a promising update on the Constantine sequel, Five Nights at Freddy’s breaking an astronomical number of box office records, a crazy story of Bradley Cooper playing the hero, and more.

As always, Atom Insider brings you a few hand-picked stories we think you’ll like. Ready? Let’s dive in.

Five Nights at Freddy’s Broke So, So Many Box Office Records

Horror video game adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s generated some mixed reviews from horror critics for not being nearly as scary as the game from which it was adapted. Instead, the movie adaptation from Blumhouse took more of a gateway horror approach, making it the perfect horror movie for younger and older audiences instead of giving it a hard-R rating. Despite that, box office predictions for Five Nights at Freddy’s were huge – and they were still wrong.

It turns out going gateway horror was a savvy decision from the creative team, as Five Nights at Freddy’s has broken a lot of box office records in its opening weekend on its way to $80 million in North America and $132 million globally. A lot. So many that Universal saw fit to release a run-down of all the records their horror movie hit has broken. The list is much longer than any of us might have predicted:

Domestic

Highest-grossing opening weekend for Blumhouse, surpassing 2018’s “Halloween” ($76.22 million)
19th Blumhouse film to open in first place at the domestic box office
Biggest opening weekend of the year for a horror film, overtaking “Scream VI” ($44 million)
Second-largest debut of all time for a video game adaptation, behind “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($146.3 million)
Tied for best opening weekend for a day-and-date streaming release, with Disney’s 2021 Marvel adventure “Black Widow” ($80 million in theaters and $60 million on Disney+)
Biggest opening weekend ever for Universal and Peacock’s hybrid releases, beating the slasher sequels, 2021 “Halloween Kills” ($49 million) and 2022’s “Halloween Ends” ($40 million)
Highest-grossing opening weekend for Halloween weekend release, outperforming 2011’s “Puss in Boots” ($34 million)
Third-biggest debut for any horror film, trailing 2017’s “It” ($123 million) and 2019’s “It: Chapter Two” ($91 million)
Best debut ever for PG-13 horror film, besting 2001’s “The Mummy Returns” ($68 million)

International

Second-biggest horror opening of the year after “The Nun II” ($52.7 million)

Global

Biggest horror opening of 2023, ahead of “The Nun II” ($88.1 million)
Highest-grossing Blumhouse global opening of all time, ahead of “Halloween” ($91.8 million)

Blumhouse does it again.

A24’s Death of a Unicorn Sounds Awesome

Death of a Unicorn from A24 was a movie that hadn’t been on our radar until this week, and it sounds incredible. We thought we’d put it on the rest of your radars, too, because from the weird premise to the stacked cast, it’s a lot of fun.

Here’s the synopsis: While en route to a crisis management summit (a.k.a. a “summer retreat”) with his daughter, Ridley (Jenna Ortega), dad Elliot (Paul Rudd) accidentally hits and kills a unicorn with his car. They take the body with them, and at the retreat, his billionaire boss, Dell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) seeks to unlock the mysteries of longevity offered by the unicorn’s horn, blood, and body. But as his scientists poke and prod, they discover that they may be playing with things beyond their understanding.

Not only is that a bizarrely wonderful premise made even better by the fact it’s a darkly comedic horror, but the cast is also fantastic. Paul Rudd, Richard E. Grant, and Jenna Ortega would be enough to sell it on their own, but joining them are Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, Anthony Carrigan, Sunita Mani, Jessica Hynes, and Stephen Park. Topping it off, John Carpenter and his son will be composing the score.

This is one to keep an eye on. We’ll keep you updated when it gets an official release date.

Brooke Shields Reveals Bradley Cooper Once Came To Her Rescue – For Real

Here’s a wild story. Actress and former supermodel Brooke Shields was honored as one of Glamour‘s 2023 Women of the Year. During her Glamour interview, Shields revealed she almost died when having a grand mal seizure – and it was Bradley Cooper who came to her aid. The scary incident happened in September, right before Shields was set for a performance of her one-woman show, Previously Owned by Brooke Shields, at New York City’s Café Carlyle.

“Nobody knows about it. I was preparing for the show, and I was drinking so much water, and I didn’t know I was low in sodium. I was waiting for an Uber. I get down to the bottom of the steps, and I start evidently looking weird, and [the people I was with] were like, ‘Are you okay?’”

After suddenly finding herself outside and wandering around in confusion like, “Why am I out here?” Shields explained. “Then I walk into the restaurant L’Artusi, and I go to the sommelier who had just taken an hour to watch my run-through.”

It was at that point that she took a turn for the worse, and everything went black. “Then my hands drop to my side and I go headfirst into the wall,” Shields explained, revealing she was, “frothing at the mouth, totally blue, trying to swallow my tongue.”

When she came to it was in an ambulance, and an unexpected friend was there with her. “The next thing I remember, I’m being loaded into an ambulance. I have oxygen on…And Bradley fucking Cooper is sitting next to me holding my hand. I thought to myself, This is what death must be like. You wake up and Bradley Cooper’s going, ‘I’m going to go to the hospital with you, Brooke,’ and he’s holding my hand. And I’m looking at my hand, I’m looking at Bradley Cooper’s hand in my hand, and I’m like, ‘This is odd and surreal.’”

Shields and Cooper are old friends after having starred together in 2008’s culty Midnight Meat Train. As it turns out, Cooper was in the neighborhood when it all went down, and when no one could get ahold of Shield’s husband, Chris Henchy, the assistants called Cooper in to help.

Perhaps the wildest part of all of it was why it happened. As Shields explained, it happened because she drank too much water in preparation for her show. “I flooded my system, and I drowned myself,” she says. “And if you don’t have enough sodium in your blood or urine or your body, you can have a seizure.”

It pays to follow her doctor’s advice: “Eat potato chips every day.”

A Mean Girls Trio Reunites For Walmart Black Friday Ad

And now, a fun spot that reunites three of the four Plastics of Mean Girls: Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert. The ad is for Walmart’s Black Friday sales and it perfectly parodies the classic comedy. This time, the Plastics are all grown up with kids of their own, but they still haven’t changed. There are even a few cameos in the spot, so keep your eyes peeled.

So fetch.

Constantine 2 Gets An Exciting Update

A Constantine sequel has been kicked around for a while, but thanks to certain holdups and legal entanglements, making it happen has been harder than one might expect. Luckily, Constantine 2 just got a promising update from director Francis Lawrence in an interview with Gamespot. “So Constantine 2 got obviously held up by the writers’ strike,” Lawrence explained “And we had to jump through a bunch of hurdles to get control of the character again, because other people had control of the Vertigo stuff. We have control.”

So now that the rights are back in the hands of the creative team, what’s next? Lawrence explained. “Keanu [Reeves] and Akiva Goldsman and I have been in meetings and have been hashing out what we think the story is going to be, and there’s more meetings of those that have to happen–the script has to be written–but really hoping that we get to do Constantine 2, and make a real rated R version of it.”

Both of those things – that they have full control and that they want it to be rated R – are good news for fans who have been dying for a sequel to the cult classic. The 2005 movie, loosely based on the Vertigo/DC character of the same name, saw Keanu Reeves as the titular John Constantine, an exorcist and demonologist who made a bargain with Hell. There’s plenty of material to draw from, so it’s exciting to see what the trio of Reeves, Lawrence, and Goldsman come up with.

Matthew Perry’s Family Has Spoken Out & Thanked All For An Outpouring Of Love

Last but not least, a touching statement from the family of Friends star Matthew Perry, who tragically passed away this past week after a suspected cardiac event. Since then, fans and Hollywood celebrities have taken to sharing an outpouring of love and grief for the actor, and it’s not gone unnoticed or unappreciated by the family. The Perry family released a short but heartfelt statement to TMZ:

“We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of our beloved son and brother. Matthew brought so much joy to the world, both as an actor and a friend. You all meant so much to him and we appreciate the tremendous outpouring of love.”

The statement came shortly after the tight-knit Friends cast released a joint statement of their own, saying

“We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family. There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss. In time we will say more, as and when we are able. For now, our thoughts and our love are with Matty’s family, his friends, and everyone who loved him around the world.”

Friends director James Burrows was perhaps the most poignant of all: “He was part of a family, and he was the first one to not be part of that family anymore.”

Perry died on Saturday at his home in Pacific Palisades. He was found unresponsive in his hot tub and it’s believed that drowning caused by a potential cardiac event was the cause. The actor has had a well-documented history of substance abuse but had seemed to be in a good place lately. Initial toxicology reports have ruled out any meth or fentanyl being in his system at the time of his death and no drugs were found at the scene. The L.A. County Medical Examiner is still working on a full report.