‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ director Emma Tammi has confirmed an R-cut of the PG13-rated horror is not in the works.
Fans had hoped the flick may go down the same road at ‘M3GAN’ and have a more adult version, but Emma stated her film was always meant to be family friendly, with most of the violence left to the audience’s imagination.
She told Forbes: “We knew that some of the fan base would want an R-rated version of this film. On the one level, we wanted to be inclusive of the younger audiences and knew we were going to hit the PG-13 rating, but for the audience that also wanted that level of violence, if you will, or at least insinuation of violence, we really wanted to still include elements that felt dark.
“Of course, there are a lot of dark elements to see in the lore, but in terms of some of the kills and everything, it was just all execution dependent.
“I would say not to expect an R-rated version on this one. We’re really happy with how the PG-13 tone landed; it felt like the right fit for this particular film. We’re sticking by it.”
‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ is based on the video game franchise created by Scott Cawthon, which released its first entry in 2014 and rapidly rocketed to huge popularity.
Players of the games face the challenge of surviving an onslaught of hostile animatronic characters inside the haunted Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza restaurant, with the film adaptation starring Josh Hutcherson.
Emma also told Total Film she wanted her ‘Freddy’s’ adaptation to be a “gateway” horror film for teenage audiences.
She added: “Going into production we knew that we wanted to really stick to a PG-13 rating for this movie.
“It felt like it was important and really exciting to be able to include a younger audience to come see this movie.
“But we also, of course, wanted to deliver on the scares and at least the implied violence of a kill, even if you don’t see everything.
“I personally find it sometimes more fun and creative to figure out the way to show the thing without explicitly showing the thing or without graphically showing the thing.
“It lets your mind go to even darker places sometimes than when you show all the gore in the guts. So, I was really excited about that rating, to be honest.”
Universal and Blumhouse’s horror ‘M3GAN’ opened in January with a PG-13 rating and grossed $181 million worldwide on a $12 million production budget, after it was originally conceived as an R-rated horror movie.
Universal ended up releasing an unrated version on Peacock after its initial release.
‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ opens on 27 October in cinemas and on Peacock from Universal Pictures.