A new soul has joined the team behind Five Nights at Freddy’s 3.

The in-development sequel is a follow-up to Blumhouse’s 2023 video game adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s and its 2025 sequel. Both movies were directed by Emma Tammi, written or co-written by the games’ creator Scott Cawthon, and starred Josh Hutcherson and Piper Rubio as siblings who end up in the orbit of a shut-down pizza place in which animatronics possessed by the spirits of tortured children wreak havoc. The movies grossed more than $200 million apiece, with the first becoming Blumhouse’s second highest-grossing movie ever (behind Obsession, which had U.S. distribution by Focus Features) and the sequel becoming their eighth.

Per Dread Central, as corroborated by The Hollywood Reporter, the first key creative appointment for Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 has now been made. Gary Dauberman, the screenwriter behind the 2017 Stephen King adaptation It and its sequel, has been tapped to pen the script for the upcoming sequel. Details about the story remain under wraps at this time. It does not seem that Cawthon will be directly involved in the screenplay for the third installment, though he is still part of the project as a producer.

Dauberman brings extensive experience in the horror genre to the table. In addition to his work on the It movies, he wrote many installments in the Conjuring universe, including Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation, Annabelle Comes Home (which was also his directorial debut), and The Nun. He also co-wrote the horror game adaptation Until Dawn, wrote and directed the 2024 Stephen King adaptation ‘Salem’s Lot, and produced The Curse of La Llorona, The Nun II, and Passenger.

Bringing Gary Dauberman on for Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 is another sign that Blumhouse is working symbiotically with James Wan’s production shingle Atomic Monster, with which they merged in 2024. Dauberman is a frequent collaborator of Wan’s, and the majority of his work in the genre comes from the Atomic Monster universe.

The Conjuring universe executive producer James Wan is himself an alumnus of Blumhouse, having helmed Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2 for the company. After the merger, their creative universes have been overlapping in even more ways, including Wan and his Insidious collaborator Leigh Whannell leading the charge for a new Saw movie being developed at the production company after they acquired the rights in 2025. Wan directed the original Saw, which was written by and starred Whannell, before joining the Blumhouse stable and striking out on his own with Atomic Monster.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 is another example of the instincts of both production companies being blended on a new project post-merger. It remains to be seen if the new installment is a success at the level of the first two Cawthon adaptations, but Dauberman’s skill at launching major horror franchises and subfranchises could very well translate to a solid continuation that helps the burgeoning film franchise become just as sprawling as The Conjuring.