Paranormal Activity Filmmaker Highly Doubts He'll Return to Franchise

At one time the Paranormal Activity franchise was the king of the entire horror genre. The cycle of what horror fans wanted to see on the big screen was found footage haunted house movies for a few years, resulting in six movies over six years with over $890 million at the global box office to prove its popularity. Like any good horror franchise though it will never really be gone, but when it eventually comes back it will be without one of the main architects of the franchise. Speaking in an interview with IndieWire, Christopher Landon, who wrote five of the seven PA movies and directed one of them, spoke about his involvement in the series, noting he doesn't think he'll return.

"We made one during COVID, and it was one of those things that just kind of happened, and I had no intention of even really being involved because I was like, oh, I'm done with that franchise, I really don't want to do it," Landon revealed. "And then I had this weirdo idea about a fake Amish community and we ended up making the movie. I mean, it's a franchise. They're always going to make another one. I don't see how they don't, I just don't know what they're planning, and I highly doubt I'll be involved anymore."

Unlike some horror franchises, Paranormal Activity's seven total movies isn't even the biggest of the modern franchises. For comparison's sake, the Saw franchise is gearing up to release its 10th film this year, while Halloween debuted its 13th last year. and The Conjuring universe franchise will debut its eighth movie later in 2023. So what's the likelihood of Paranormal ACtivity continuing? If you ask franchise producer Jason Blum, it doesn't seem likely.

In a previous interview with Variety, Blum was asked about the future of the series, bluntly replying: "It has been enough already. That last Paranormal Activity movie was terrible."

Lucky for Blum, his production label already has other horror franchises that they're clearly focusing on. Recent hit M3GAN very quickly got a sequel greenlit with plans for a full trilogy of The Exorcist movies already in the works too.