Friday’s BlumFest 2025 panel at New York Comic Con teased celebrating the studio’s 15th anniversary with appearances by the Black Phone 2 and Five Nights at Freddy’s sequel teams, exclusive footage and the announcement of Megan Fox as part of FNAF 2’s voice cast.
Producer and Blumhouse studio founder Jason Blum opened the panel, speaking to where he’d want to go in another decade and a half. “One of the things I’m proudest of is discovering and empowering new talent. People who haven’t done horror, or maybe have done a little bit of horror. People like Jordan Peele,” he told the crowd. “What I’m really looking forward to is meeting and hopefully producing the next generation of horror. Probably the most exciting part about my job, especially as I get older, is working with young people who have vision and energy.”
He also shouted out several upcoming film and TV titles, such as Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. “I just saw it two weeks ago, but you’re gonna be very happy about it, but I’m not supposed to talk it up too much. It’s really cool,” he shared. He then shouted out the Jessica Chastain-led and Rob Savage directed The Other Mommy and the series Scarpetta, with Nicole Kidman.
At one point during the panel, the audience received a message from The Further, with Blum noting that Insidious: The Red Door will arrive next fall. During another portion of the panel, Nine inch Nails’ and Eyes Out Studio’s Robin Finck arrived on stage to tease Sleep Awake, the upcoming Blumhouse game that uses full motion video within the 3D game space.
“It’s set in a stunning world, truly of environmental storytelling, and it leverages unique story-driven puzzles with intense stealth and chase sequences,” he said. “We’re playing in a world where everyone is in a panic to remain awake because those who succumb to sleep inexplicably vanish. People are disappearing, leaving only void shadows behind.” The soundtrack will be released on Milan Records.
Read on for more on Black Phone 2 and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 reveals at BlumFest 2025.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Blum, director Emma Tammi, actor Elizabeth Lail and Matthew Lillard all made appearances during the last portion of Friday’s panel, where the director teased that fans can expect “a bunch more animatronics.” That includes Toy Freddie and Toy Bonnie, who made character appearances in the crowd. She also noted that there were more humans, with Lael and Lillard both making appearances. In terms of what the cast and creative team were excited about with the sequel, Lillard teased more lore, more jump scares.
Tammi also revealed several sequel voice actors, including Kellen Goff (Toy Freddy), MatPat (Toy Bonnie) and Megan Fox (Toy Chica). “Her kids happen to be huge Five Nights at Freddy‘s fans as well. So she has heard about this world for a long time from her kids, and she was really pumped to do the voice of Toy Chica. She did the most amazing job. She wanted to pay homage to the games, but also make it her own. And I’m so stoked for you guys to hear her. She’s amazing,” said Tammi of Fox’s casting.
Black Phone 2
Blum was joined by cast members Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Miguel Mora, Demián Bichir and author Joe Hill appeared to tease the sequel and shared exclusive footage in the room. Beyond the clip, the group discussed the first movie’s impact, coming back for another film and what tonally makes the sequel different from the original.
“I wrote the story over 20 years ago, and I got paid like 35 bucks for it, so I was pretty psyched about the film, because Jason Blum actually pays a little bit better,” Hill said about the initial reaction to the films. “I knew it was in good hands because Scott Erickson and Robert Cargill were tackling it, and everything they’ve done has come from the heart. They care intensely about the characters and put the characters first in their stories. I felt safe with them.”
Hawke spoke to Scott’s pitch on a sequel, noting that he got it while in an airport. “Scott said, ‘I really have an idea for a sequel,’ and I paced the airport for about an hour as he kind of described what this movie is. It was breathtaking. Just the dream of the movie, everything that it was,” he said. “In the years that the movie has come out, the fans have really grown and really cared. Knowing the script I’ve read, we were going to make a lot of people really happy.”
Added Thames, “When the movie came out, and how the fans received it, and how special it was to so many people, was insane. It was such a whirlwind. So getting the chance to bring it back, and bring these characters back in this world, expanding on that in a way that I never could have imagined, it’s really special.”
McGraw teased what fans can expect coming back, while noting how it was challenging for her. “Gwen is honestly completely different from where we left off in the first movie. Obviously, years have gone by, and you get to see the trauma and how it has shaped them, and how they’ve tried to grow from it,” she said. “She definitely feels like an outcast now. She’s much more reserved than she was in the first one, and I am definitely the opposite of that. I’m a very social and extroverted person, so I feel like, in a lot of ways, especially with all the emotional scenes, it definitely tested my abilities as an actor.”
Added Mora, “Black Phone 2 revolves so deeply around the trauma that these characters go through, and that they experience was the terrifying grabber,” he said. “Grief is one of those very heavy things with these characters. Ernesto lost his brother in the first one, and stepping into this new perspective was definitely quite the challenge, but something I really enjoyed.”
