From the director of Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli, and executive producer, Steven Spielberg, comes a suspenseful drama series about an explorer who goes missing and the attempt made by his wife, son and others to track him down. The River will premiere early 2012 on ABC.

Source: Dread Central

From the director of Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli, and executive producer, Steven Spielberg, comes a suspenseful drama series about an explorer who goes missing and the attempt made by his wife, son and others to track him down. The River will premiere early 2012 on ABC.

Source: You Tube

Producer Jason Blum broke the silence and gave this update (via STYD): “Area 51 is like Paranormal Activity. The additional photography for Paranormal Activity, we went back 50 times. The great thing about doing extra shooting for inexpensive movies is that the cost is low, so we screen and shoot and screen and shoot. Oren and I were pulled away from Area 51 a lot for the second Paranormal. Once that came out, we ramped up on Area 51 again. I anticipate the movie will be mostly done in about three or four months. They can’t set a release date yet until we do all of that.”

A little unconventional in terms of production, but as long as it’s scary as hell, I guess we won’t mind the wait. I wonder how similar Apollo 18 compared to this will be?

Source: /Film

Oren Peli has signed on to direct Eliza Graves, a short story of Poe’s. The story centers on a Medical School grad, who takes a job at an insane asylum, not knowing of course that the asylum has been taken over by the patients. Sounds like good stuff, and according to sources, one Jodie Foster was originally interested in the film.

This film will follow up Peli’s current project Area 51, and you can guess what that might be about!  It seems Peli is sticking to the genre for the time being, and it will be interesting to hear more about this one, especially when it comes to casting.

Source: Collider

That’s where Featherson comes in, chatting it up with MTV Movies Blog (via Dread Central) about reprising her role in Paranormal Activity 2. Continue reading on to see exactly what the actress said.:

“I don’t know. I’m waiting to hear,” the actress told MTV News recently. “If they had a way to put me in there in a way that would be reasonable and make sense — I don’t know how they’d do that — I’d definitely be down for it. If I get that phone call, I will be there. I will be scared or happy or whatever they want me to be.”

According to Featherston, Michael R. Perry is still at work on the script and the actors are waiting to hear how they might be involved, if at all.

“[Original director] Orin [Peli] and I keep in touch,” she said. “Micah and I keep in touch. After working with the producers for so long, I grab lunch with Steven [Schneider] or Jason [Blum]. I know they are working on things. The truth is, I don’t press them for a lot of info because I trust that they’ll do it right. I just gotta wait with the rest of everybody and see what cool stuff they come up with.”

Paranormal Activity 2 is supposedly slated for an October 22nd release. They’re supposed to be duking it out on their opening weekend with popular franchise Saw VII in 3-D, but we’ll see about that.

A lot of people must be wondering what happened to the director of the sudden hit Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli. He would have been considered if it was not for his prior attachment to the science fiction picture Area 51 which he wrote and directed. Paramount better hurry up and put everything together if they expect to go into competition with Saw VII in 3D this October with the set-in-stone release date for Paranormal Activity 2.

Although newcomer Oren Peli directed the surprise hit low budget film Paranormal Activity, he’s already moving onto bigger and better things like other directing gigs. Paramount Pictures is salivating still over the thought of making a sequel to the supernatural horror/thriller film, and if they want to keep on schedule that means they have to go digging around for a new director if Peli is not up for it.

Originally Kevin Greutert was poised to helm the sequel to the eerie film, but since he got scooped up to direct Saw VII, the search continues. There are a couple of directors that are being eyeballed to take on the sequel, and among those are Brian De Palma, Brad Anderson and Greg McLean, says the LA Times.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with who these people are, let me refresh your memory. Brian De Palma directed several popular films which include the 1983 Scarface as well as Carlito’s Way and Carrie. Brad Anderson took the reigns on The Machinist and a few episodes of the Fox television series Fringe. When it comes to Greg McLean, he’s directed Wolf Creek and Rogue.

Who do you think would make the best choice as director for this sequel? Share your thoughts.

You want to keep on going on about how fast track this puppy is going, it’s practically following in the footsteps of how quickly the Saw movies come out from Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate. Paranormal Activity 2 is already set up to have an October 22nd release date of this year, already set to go into fierce battle against Saw VII that’s supposed to be shown in blood-gushing 3D. No word yet on what the movie is going to be about, or even more so what the official title is, but once we do we’ll keep you updated.

Here’s more on the reactions of this pick up from Variety below:

Peli and Blum said they were “Happy to continue working with with agile and talented production, marketing and distribution teams at Paramount that made `Paranormal Activity’ such a remarkable success.”

Molner said the deal illustrated the fertile ground in creating moderately budgeted franchises that have become some of Hollywood’s biggest hits.

“These films show that real franchises can be successfully launched from the independent side of the business, not something the marketplace necessarily believed five years ago,” he said. “As financiers, we’re very lucky to create value in ownership with major distributors like Paramount Pictures and the enviable talents of Jason, Oren, and IM Global.”

Said IM Global’s Ford: “With the international distribution already set up on the film, bringing Paramount onboard after they did such distinguished work on `Paranormal Activity’ is the perfect finale, and most important piece in the jigsaw.”

When you first hear that this film is shot basically in the same form as Paranormal Activity, you would think that he’s recycling what has already worked for him but this comes before the huge wave of popularity over that film. For those of you who have seen Paranormal Activity, do you feel that the particular way that they shot and did the ‘found footage’ worked, or do you think they could have done something more with it? Do you think that Area 51 could hold up compared to his previous film?

Title: Paranormal Activity
Starring: Katie Featherston
Released: 29th December 2009
SRP: $29.99 (DVD)

Further Details:
Paramount Home Entertainment has announced 1-disc DVD ($29.99) and 2-disc Blu-ray ($40.99) releases of Paranormal Activity for the 29th December. Both will include the original theatrical version of the film, plus an unrated version with a shocking alternate ending not seen in theaters. As far as we know, no extra material will be included on the DVD release at all. The Blu-ray release will however include a digital copy of the film

Source: DVD Active

“We have the rights on a worldwide basis to do ‘Paranormal 2′ and we’re looking to see if that makes some sense,” Paramount Chairman Brad Grey said in an interview today.

Paramount has an extra reason to make a sequel to “Paranormal Activity” beyond trying to duplicate its success: Although the studio has only domestic rights to the current film, it would have worldwide rights to a follow-up, Grey noted.

Currently “Paranormal Activity” has made $62.4 Million domestically and is starting its international run this coming Friday. However, with the particular ending that this movie had, it’s a tough task for Paramount with trying to get a solid enough idea to warrant a sequel. There is the lackluster sequel to “The Blair Witch Project” that comes to mind, but Paramount Pictures is in the mindset to still strike while the iron is hot. This might just be one of those films that should be left alone, but this reporter said this before with a small film called “Saw” and look what happened.

The sleeper hit Paranormal Activity continues to make waves, getting enough pull from it’s marketing campaign to warrant a nationwide release. With the theaters that the Oren Peli directed horror/thriller has taken ahold of, it’s been able to make about $7 Million, proving once again that word-of-mouth can truly bring in crowds. The Bruce Willis starring film Surrogates continues its steady decline, only being able to conjure up $4.1 Million making it a grand total of an estimated $32 M despite it’s tag budget price of $80 Million. For the tally of the top ten box office winners of this weekend, look at the list below:

Weekend Box Office (October 9-11)

1. Couples Retreat   ($35.3 M)
2. Zombieland   ($15 M)
3. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs   ($12 M)
4. Toy Story/Toy Story 2 in 3D   ($7.6 M)
5. Paranormal Activity   ($7 M)
6. Surrogates   ($4.1 M)
7. The Invention of Lying   ($3.3 M)
8. Whip It   ($2.8 M)
9. Capitalism: A Love Story   ($2.7 M)
10. Fame   ($2.5 M)

With the end of each weekend comes the start of a long few days until Friday when the newest batch of films is to be released. Ready to swing away is Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are, Law Abiding Citizen, The Stepfather and in limited theaters is New York I Love You and Black Dynamite.

Over the course of three weeks in September & October of 2006, they ran nightly surveillances and captured incredible proof of Paranormal Activity.  The nightly surveillance footage and home videos have been edited into the feature film Paranormal Activity.

Paramount is set to release on September 25.

Source: You Tube