Paranormal Activity Producer Not Interested in Continuing Series
Last year saw the surprise revival of the Paranormal Activity franchise with the Paramount+ exclusive movie Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin. The first film in the series in six years, fans of the found-footage horror series weren't exactly thrilled with it because it largely abandoned the continuity of the previous movies. Turns out that producer Jason Blum wasn't too keen on it either, advocating for the franchise to come to an end in a new interview. "It has been enough already," Blum told Variety. "That last 'Paranormal Activity' movie was terrible." So could there be more anyway? Blum won't rule it out.
"With 'Halloween,' we only had the rights to three movies, so we said: 'Halloween Ends'! It ends for Blumhouse, at least," the producer added. "With other things, you just have this feeling it's time to put them to bed. (Paranormal Activity) would come back if some director I love, like Scott Derrickson, said: 'I have a great idea for a 'Paranormal Activity' movie.' But it's not something I want to do [at the moment]."
Blum's interview with the trade wasn't just about his distaste for Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, opening up about their strategies at Blumhouse Productions for getting high profile directors to work with low budgets.
"We borrowed the French auteur system and applied it to very commercial filmmaking," Blumhouse added. "We give them more control than they typically get in Hollywood, but they have to give us something as well: a commitment to make movies inexpensively...The way studio filmmaking works is correlated to budget, the more expensive the movie, the more time the director is strategizing on how they are going to get their way. On a $200 million movie, the director is spending 80% of their time on politics and 20% actually making the movie. On our $4 million movie, 100% of time is spent on making a good movie."
Despite Blum's apparent disinterest in the series as a whole, a new film, reportedly titled Paranormal Activity: The Other Side, is rumored to debut next year. What's bizarre about this reported sequel however is that no actual evidence of its existence can be found online. Reports have circulated about the film's plot, cast, and director, many of them seemingly part of the German film industry, but no official word from any sources about this film can be verified. An IMDB page exists for the movie however, but it very well appears to be fan-made. With no confirmation from Paramount+ that another movie is in the works, and Jason Blum seemingly shooting down the idea entirely above, it seems like rumors of another film are bunk.