The Paranormal Activity series is the latest set of films to be getting the reboot treatment. Will Eubank, who recently helmed the Kristen Stewart-led thriller Underwater, will direct, while the script will be written by Christopher Landon, best known for directing the Happy Death Day films and recent body-swap horror comedy, Freaky.
Landon actually has prior involvement in the Paranormal Activity franchise. He’s been a writer on the series since the second installment, and he’s not the only former collaborator coming back. Franchise creator Oren Peli and Jason Blum are returning as producers, too.
The original Paranormal Activity series kicked off in 2007 with the first film, which became one of the most talked about horror movies of the 21st century with its inventive marketing campaign and found footage premise. The success of that film led to five more installments, none of which were particularly well received, but they all made good money at the box office.
Sources are reportedly calling this an “unexpected retooling”, maybe because the word “reboot” is so ubiquitous in Hollywood right now. But this is a reboot. Even though the other Paranormal Activity films were mostly separate stories and another one could have been made, they probably want the freshness of a reboot, rather than film no. 7, which makes the series sound old and tired.
Landon’s involvement would be intriguing if not for the news that he’s been working on the series since almost the beginning. Seeing his genre mixing and comedic touch in the series might have been able to give it some fresh legs. Happy Death Day and Freaky have come since the Paranormal Activity series ended, so maybe he’ll have more runway to experiment now that he’s proven himself.
Will this spark a new run of Paranormal Activity films? Or will it be like 2017’s Jigsaw, the random Saw reboot that went nowhere?
#Peace.Love.ParanormalActivity
