New Paranormal Activity Movie Gets 2021 Release Date

The next chapter in the Paranormal Activity saga is moving forward and has just secured a March 19, 2021 release date, according to The Wrap. When the film ultimately debuts, it will have been six years since the release of the previous installment, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension. Details about the film's plot or the filmmakers behind the endeavor are relatively unknown, but Paramount Pictures has enlisted Blumhouse Productions founder and regular Paranormal Activity producer Jason Blum to serve as a producer. While the project is currently being billed as "Paranormal Activity 7," it's unclear if this new film will be a sequel, prequel, or reboot of the premise.

The Paranormal Activity saga was a defining force of the horror genre throughout much of the 2010s, with the first film landing in theaters in 2009 and becoming a major sensation. The film earned sequels on a nearly annual basis, fulfilling the void left by the Saw franchise when that series seemingly concluded and handed off its traditional pre-Halloween weekend opening.

While many audiences might point towards 1999's The Blair Witch Project as the seminal force in the "found footage" world of horror, it wasn't until Paranormal Activity's success at the box office, earning the franchise hundreds of millions of dollars despite the original entry costing roughly $15,000, that led to the found-footage boom.

Fans shouldn't expect to see the original director, Oren Peli, returning to the series anytime soon, as he has previously revealed just how bored he is with the concept.

"I kind of wanted to just kind of cash out and be done [after Paranormal Activity]," Peli admitted to the Post Mortem Podcast in 2017. "I got sucked into [producing] the Paranormal Activity sequels, then I had lunch with Steven Spielberg and he said, 'Let's do a TV show together.' And we did The River."

Many would think that Spielberg being interested in your work would be proof that you had an eye for horror, but Peli's heart wasn't entirely in it.

"At this point, I would have to be incredibly bored," he pointed out. "But I don't see that happening anytime soon. I would have to love something so much that I'm gonna give up my peaceful life now, and go back to the crazy world of directing. I'm very happy not to have to deal with [that] these days."

Stay tuned for details on the new Paranormal Activity, which lands in theaters on March 19, 2021.

Are you looking forward to a new installment in the series? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!