The Dead by Daylight movie gets an optimistic update from Blumhouse vice president Ryan Turek. The multiplayer horror video game was first released for Windows in 2016 and follows four players who must fight to survive against a vicious killer, who is also controlled by a player. The Dead by Daylight movie was first announced by Blumhouse in March 2023.
Speaking with Collider, Turek shares a promising update on the Dead by Daylight movie. As an avid player of the game himself, Turek explains that he looks at the film “as the celebration of horror that the video game itself is.” Check out his full quote below:
I will say that one of the projects that I’m active on is Dead by Daylight, which is the video game adaptation of a game that’s been around for, like, seven years. I look at that as the celebration of horror that the video game itself is. What we’ve learned from Five Nights at Freddy’s is, obviously, steer towards the fans and make a video game adaptation for the fans. I’m a huge Dead by Daylight fan. I played, even though I steer to newer games like Alan Wake 2, and I’m like, “Let me play some Alan Wake 2 tonight… Eh, I’m gonna get into Dead by Daylight and play the killer tonight.” That one I’m super excited about, and we’re creatively mulling around what the way into it is.
Could The Dead By Daylight Movie Be Blumhouse’s Next Big Hit?
Dead by Daylight is in some ways a surprising choice for a Blumhouse film adaptation. As the game became more popular, its later iterations evolved from including generic characters that mimicked horror movie villains to actually including the licensed versions of those characters, such as Leatherface and Michael Myers. That is, Dead by Daylight pays frequent homage to horror movies, so to then make a horror film out of it turns it into the form which it emulates.
As Turek references, Dead by Daylight comes on the heels of 2023’s Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. Though Five Nights at Freddy’s was critically panned, it was a commercial success, grossing $295 million worldwide. This result proves both that Turek is right that Blumhouse should “make a video game adaptation for the fans,” and that there is a large fan base for the horror video game subgenre. The success of Five Nights at Freddy’s suggests Dead by Daylight could earn a similar reception, and Blumhouse’s collection of horror properties could allow for numerous iconic characters to appear.
Turek’s enthusiasm for Dead by Daylight is good news in and of itself for the adaptation. Blumhouse has a busy slate of films coming up in 2024, including January release Night Swim, Imaginary, Speak No Evil, and Wolf Man. With Turek’s help, hopefully Blumhouse will be able to make Dead by Daylight a priority amid its many productions.
Dead by Daylight
Dead by Daylight is a multiplayer survival horror experience in which one player takes on the role of the Killer, and four others assume the roles of Survivors. The Survivors must try to escape the Killer before being impaled to appease a malevolent force known as the Entity. Dead by Daylight features a cast of original characters, but also a number of licensed characters from horror movies, games, and TV shows.
- Franchise
- Dead by Daylight
- Released
- June 14, 2016
- Developer(s)
- Behaviour Interactive
- Publisher(s)
- Behaviour Interactive
- Genre(s)
- Multiplayer , Action , Survival Horror , Horror
