Well, it looks like I may have been wrong and that Paranormal Activity could indeed get up into the hundred million dollar territory*. And with the movie now at over 60 million (on an original cost of 11 grand, with a few grand more for the new ending and re-editing and a few million for P&A), Paramount is thinking about a sequel. What a silly idea.
“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 told the LA Times this morning. Apparently part of the issue here is that Paramount only owns domestic rights to Paranormal Activity, and they covet all the worldwide grosses that will begin pouring in next week.
It seems obvious that a sequel to this movie is a terrible fucking idea. Just make another low budget horror film. Just learn the lessons of Paranormal Activity and apply them to future films instead of being lazy and greedy and trying to clone the first. This is the main problem with Hollywood – instead of learning lessons from successes they simply try to remake the success. And it never works out, creatively or financially.
* note: that doesn’t change my previous thesis that Paramount could make even more money on the film by making it available On Demand, if even for just Halloween. That’s free cash funneled into studio coffers.