Sumith Prasad
The narrative of Peacock/Universal Pictures’ horror film ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ progresses without revealing much about its setting. Since a major part of the movie is set inside an abandoned pizzeria, named Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, where the past hasn’t caught up with the present, it’s hard to figure out when and where exactly ‘FNAF’ takes place. Having said that, the task isn’t impossible, especially if one can dive into the creators’ words and the other materials that form the ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ franchise, which prominently includes a video game series and a novel trilogy. Therefore, let us share everything you need to know about the film’s setting! SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Beginning of the New Millenium
Emma Tammi’s movie version of ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ takes place in the year 2000. The screenwriting trio that comprised the director, video game series creator Scott Cawthon, and Seth Cuddeback changed the timeline from the 1990s, the period in which the first game of the series begins, to the start of the new millennium. Protagonist Mike Schmidt’s brother Garrett’s abduction played a significant role in the change of the timeline, explained Tammi in an interview given to Uproxx.
“We were hovering around the year 2000. Obviously, there was a lot going on with Y2K then, and so we didn’t want to be right on the cusp of that because that felt like such a big moment and that wasn’t the focus of our story in any way,” Tammi said in the interview. “But just over the hurdle of that and doing the math backwards from when generally the pizzeria would’ve opened and when it would’ve closed and when Mike’s brother would’ve been abducted. So, really, just piecing together a rough timeline landed us around the year 2000,” the filmmaker added.
Tammi and her team also wanted to place the film’s narrative away from the popular period of the pizzeria culture. “[…] I think Abby and Mike, whose home we’re spending some time in, and nothing in their place is new. They’re probably getting everything secondhand. And so some of their technology is not the most up-to-date anyway. And certainly in the pizzeria, nothing is up to date. So we’re pulling from the ’90s and ’80s in terms of these heyday eras of the pizzeria,” the director said in the same Uproxx interview.
The Unrevealed Locale
The place where ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ is set is not explicitly revealed in the film. The region’s name is not present in any of the legal documents Mike receives. Vanessa’s police car has “GFPD” written on the same, which made us consider Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Great Falls, Montana. However, as far as the video game series and novel trilogy are concerned, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza is located in Hurricane, Utah. A legal document that features in ‘Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator,’ the sixth game in the series, has “Washington County,” where Hurricane is located, written on it.
Furthermore, the city is presented as the location of Freddy’s in ‘The Silver Eyes,’ the first novel in the trilogy. In one of the games, the character Montgomery Gator also says the name “Hurricane.” The city exists in reality in Utah with a population of over 20,000. The region is known for its historically significant peach and pecan orchards. The movie, however, was mainly shot in New Orleans, Louisiana. The scenes set in the pizzeria were prominently filmed in a set in an empty parking lot in Chalmette.
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