Just days after announcing that Blumhouse is finally moving forward with its Dead by Daylight movie adaptation, led by Icelandic filmmaker Thordur Palsson, CEO Jason Blum has had to defend the movie's director against fans who don't think he's up to the job.
"No one had heard of Emma before Five Nights at Freddy's, and that worked out pretty well," said Blum on Twitter. "Have faith, my friends."
Blum's Tweet is in response to Blumhouse's original post, which reads, "To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Dead by Daylight, we’re happy to share that Thordur Palsson will direct the film adaptation." Many Twitter users were quick to reply, "Who?"
It is true that those across the pond may not know much of Palsson, but the filmmaker has made a name for himself in Nordic cinema. Palsson is best known for his Netflix detective series The Valhalla Murders, which sits at an imprssive 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, and his 2025 monster movie The Damned, which scored 90%.
Just because Palsson doesn't have as much experience as others doesn't mean he isn't able to carry the adaptation. As Blum pointed out, Five Nights at Freddy's director Emma Tammi wasn't a household name before helming the 2023 video game adaptation. But Five Nights at Freddy's quickly became one of the highest-grossing video game horror movies of all time, and Blumhouse made a sequel in 2025.
Not much is known about the movie at this point, other than it is based on the Dead by Daylight video game franchise. The first game follows four survivor characters: office worker Dwight, an athlete Meg, a botanist Claudette, and a survivalist Jake, who must complete tasks in order to escape before they are murdered by the fifth player, known as the killer. To win, the killer, who takes shape as a number of different horror-themed monsters, must pick off the survivors and feed them to The Entity.
Although no cast announcements have been made just yet, the movie is said to start filming sometime in 2027. Crawl scribe Alexandre Aja and The Conjuring 2's David Leslie Johnston-McGoldrick are penning the script.
The Dead by Daylight movie does not yet have a release date. For more, check out our guides to the best video game movies and upcoming video game movies.
