The hype has steadily been growing ever since the anticipated and well-overdue cinematic adaptation of the cult classic Five Nights at Freddy's game was first announced. If you're one of the countless fans who are no doubt looking forward to revisiting the most famous and most dangerous pizzeria in gaming history on the big screen, it turns out that we may get that chance more than once. Matthew Lillard, one of the actors cast in the upcoming film, revealed candidly in a YouTube interview with WeeklyMTG that there are not one but three Five Nights at Freddy's movies planned by Blumhouse.

The announcement of a Five Nights at Freddy's film was first made back in 2015 when Scott Cawthon's groundbreaking horror game franchise was at the peak of its fandom. Warner Bros had come on board to help produce it, with Gil Kenan announced as writer and co-director a few months later. However, delays soon took hold, and the film was placed into turnaround, or a need for outside help with completing the development phase of the project in order to go to pre-production. Gil Kenan and Warner Bros eventually dropped from the film, and in 2017 Blumhouse Productions announced that it would be taking over production of the movie, with Chris Columbus as the new writer and director. Unfortunately, creative conflicts between Scott Cawthon and Columbus soon drove out yet another director from the project, leaving it in limbo once more. After the pandemic, Blumhouse amped up its efforts to get things back on track, and Emma Tammi came aboard as the third and final director, co-writing the film alongside Cawthon, which seems to have gone well.

Casting for the movie has gradually been unfolding, with a few more actors announced so far. Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games) will play Mike Schmidt, the infamous security guard at the mercy of the haunted animatronics every night he's on duty. Mary Stuart Masterson (Daniel Isn't Real) was recently cast as an unnamed villain in the film, perhaps one of the animatronics themselves. Elizabeth Lail (You) is set to play Vanessa, another security guard from one of the more recent games in the franchise. Various child actors have also been cast to play kids in the film, both living and dead.

The arguably biggest role, however, has gone to Matthew Lillard, who will play William Afton, the main villain of the entire story of Five Nights at Freddy's, who is the orchestrator of many of the tragedies that occur within the doomed pizzeria. He's expressed nothing but pure excitement about obtaining the role and was eager to share his thoughts on a WeeklyMTG interview earlier this week. Among his praise for Blumhouse, he let slip that he has been signed to a three-movie deal with the production company, implying that Five Nights at Freddy's will not be a one-off film but a potential franchise of its own, and he would play William Afton in all three of those films. Such a surprise opens a wide array of creative possibilities for how Blumhouse plans to play out the story since we know they include characters from various installments in the game series.

The MTGWeekly YouTube interview with Matthew Lillard can be viewed below.

Filming of Five Nights at Freddy's officially starts this month in New Orleans and is scheduled to finish in early April. However, no theatrical release date has been set yet.

Related: Five Nights at Freddy's Movie is Finally Filming

What Could Blumhouse Do With Three FNAF Films?

Five Nights at Freddy's Movie Happening at Warner Bros.
ScottGames

Now that we know that Blumhouse Productions is feeling ambitious with up to three films planned for Five Nights at Freddy's, it calls for a brainstorm session of what direction Emma Tammi and Scott Cawthon desire to take with the story. While characters from at least two of the existing games have been cast for the first film, it's still possible that they may opt for an origin-centric plot to start with, to establish the universe of FNAF, the original haunted animatronics, and characters such as William Afton.

From there, the story could reach other establishments from the games, such as FNAF: Sister Location and FNAF: Security Breach. Given the massive spiderweb of characters and lore that FNAF has built over the years, it's difficult to say with even relative certainty what Blumhouse has in mind. If the first film does well enough to greenlight both sequels, audiences will simply have to wait and see.