Five Nights at Freddy's movie teaser leaks but community fights back and refuses to share it

(Image credit: Universal/Blumhouse)

A first-look teaser for upcoming horror movie, Five Nights at Freddy's, has leaked online.

According to series creator Scott Cawthon, he first began receiving emails about the potential leak "early in the day" yesterday, May 6, but had been away from his desk and unable to look into it further.

"I tried to ignore it and enjoy my day, but I was really, really, disheartened," Cawthon explained on the Five Nights at Freddy's subreddit.

Comment from r/fivenightsatfreddys

"I know that Blumhouse and Universal (and me too) have all worked very hard to make something really exciting to share. So the thought of a first-look being spoiled was frustrating, and I was really dreading coming home to see what all had happened while I was away."

To his "surprise", though, he "got home and found a lot of YouTube channels refusing to do videos on it, Twitter channels refusing to repost it, countless members refusing to watch it, and moderators taking a stand against allowing discussion on it".

"It's really difficult, if not impossible, to prevent people from trying to spoil things for everyone else, but it was really encouraging to see the fanbase pull together and push back against it," Cawthon added.

"For those of you who resisted watching it, I think you'll be much happier when you're able to see a finished product that is edited and polished, with VFX and proper sounds."

Filming for the Five Nights at Freddy's movie officially began back in February. It's based on the video game series of the same name, with Cawthon signed on as producer to keep a watchful eye on developments.

The Five Nights at Freddy's movie will release just in time for Halloween, hitting theaters and streaming service, Peacock, on October 27.

If you've ever played Five Nights at Freddy's and found yourself thinking more about just how delicious the Pizzaplex's pepperoni pizzas are more than the haunted animatronics, I have good news: there's an FNAF-themed cookbook on the way.

In other video game movie news, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has broken yet another record this weekend and this time, it's set a new domestic box office record in North America, surpassing the $500 million milestone. It's now the biggest video game film of all time, having crossed $1 billion internationally last weekend.

Here's our roundup of all the upcoming video game movies.

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.