Perhaps the least surprising news to hit the news radar for a while, The Hollywood Reporter has a story on the inevitability of a sequel to Oren Peli’s scarefest Paranormal Activity, and quotes Viacom CEO Phillipe Dauman’s summation of the film as ‘one of those surprise hits that comes along only rarely‘.
This was, of course, in the middle of his Scrooge McDuck-esque jumping and rolling about in the piles of coin the Halloween hit has pulled in for Paramount.
So, while this is no surprise what does the future hold for the latest Hollywood horror franchise? It will be impossible to recreate the impact the original had, with the home movie documentary already a mainstream style, and chances are the next dose of Paranormal Activity will have only the slightest thread to Peli’s film.
It would be folly indeed to recreate a Book of Shadows style follow up, and to continue the Blair Witch analogy perhaps a documentary along the lines of the 1999 Curse of the Blair Witch, Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick’s fictional companion piece to the original, might be the way to go.
Whatever direction Paramount take Paranormal Activity it needs to be at least as innovative and fresh as the original to live up to the name.
Dauman reassures us, “Our team will come up with the right creative and marketing approach“.
Oh, that’s ok then.
