Insidious: The Red Door’s Patrick Wilson Reveals Why He Chose This Franchise for His Directorial Debut

Over the past few years, Patrick Wilson has established a nice little niche for himself in horror storytelling. The actor’s latest project, Insidious: The Red Door, also happens to be his directorial debut. According to Wilson himself, he felt right at home making the leap to the director’s chair in the James Wan-produced franchise.

“I think, like everything, like all of us, you look at the opportunities you’re presented with, the opportunities that are in front of you, your goals shift as your career shifts,” Wilson said in a recent chat with Collider. “Most of my career, any actor’s career, is you’re just kind of a gun for hire, right? That’s just the nature of the beast. I think with this movie it was a great fit and an incredible opportunity because nobody makes these movies better than Blumhouse, and I’ve done several movies with these guys and I knew I’d be taken care of.”

Wilson went on to note some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed up-and-comers were, at one point, a first-time director working with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum.

“So, all these things just kind of fit. It made sense. Jason Blum, although they may not like to work with a lot of first-time directors, if he does, it’s a director that’s either come from some other side of the business. I think of Jordan Peele, Joel Edgerton, other guys that have made the transition with them,” Wilson mentioned.

He added, “So there’s a huge bonus in the way that Jason Blum and Cooper [Samuelson] and the guys at Blumhouse run their business that enables a director to go, ‘We’re gonna let you do your movie. You’re gonna be protected. We’re gonna get the team around you.’ And so it was super comforting and a real luxury in this climate to be able to have a summertime movie with a first-time director in a half-a-billion-dollar franchise, so I’m very fortunate.”

Insidious: The Red Door is the third film in the franchise Wilson has appeared in after Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2. Now the fifth film in the franchise, the film returns to the story of the Lambert family after having taken a detour over the course of the third and fourth films in the franchise.

Insidious: The Red Door is now in theaters.