The hit kid’s horror game Poppy Playtime is getting the movie treatment as Legendary has inked a deal with creator Mob Entertainment and Angry Films to make a live-action adaptation.
Legendary will develop and produce along with Mob Entertainment and Angry Films’ Don Murphy and Susan Montford. The pair recently finished filming the horror movie Faces of Death, based on the notorious VHS tapes, for the company and has previously worked on the Transformers franchise.
The deal sees Legendary hold TV and movie rights for Poppy playtime.
Is Poppy Playtime Movie a Big Win for Legendary?
Poppy Playtime is a mascot horror game series much like its precursor, Five Nights at Freddy’s. As with that game, it became an internet sensation thanks to YouTube and Twitch. The first game amassed 12 million players on PC and Mobile, and now, three years and three chapters deep, the game series can also be found on modern consoles and has reached more than 40 million players.
While it’s not technically ”for kids,” aisles of merchandise in toy stores would say something quite different. Its cast of colorful characters, such as Huggy Wuggy, Catbee, and, of course, Poppy is a big reason it’s gained such popularity with a younger audience, where a massive market for youth-orientated horror has been lucrative for the likes of Roblox, Rainbow Friends, Garten of Banban, and Baldi’s Basics.
In the game, you must try to survive the vengeful toys waiting for you in the abandoned toy factory. Use your GrabPack to hack electrical circuits or nab anything from afar. Explore the mysterious facility… and don’t get caught.
Legendary will no doubt have looked at the success Universal had with last year’s Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, which massively outstripped Blumhouse stablemate The Exorcist Believer at the box office despite releasing on Peacock at the same time. It became Blumhouse’s biggest movie to date, showing a largely untapped audience for youth-orientated horror based on popular YouTube-centric titles.
It’s the latest step in the meteoric rise of its creators.
“When we first started this journey, we followed our passion and created a series of games and brands with the purpose of inspiring and entertaining. We’ve always dreamed big and are thrilled to have created something that has captured the hearts of tens of millions around the world,” said Co-founders Zach Belanger, CEO and Seth Belanger, CCO of Mob Entertainment. “This movie deal is a great logical next step in the growth of our transmedia entertainment company.”
