The horror genre has been in a serious renaissance over the past few years, to the joy of moviegoers. Exciting original concepts have made their way to theaters, resulting in box office and critical success. Many of the modern classics come from Blumhouse Productions, including Get Out, Split, Happy Death Day, and the Halloween reboot. And now it looks like the horror house will soon return to one of the franchises that helped put it on the map: Paranormal Activity.
The Paranormal Activity franchise was a serious moneymaker throughout its tenure in theaters, mostly because each movie needed such a limited budget to film. The original movie made almost $200 million on a meager budget of $15K, and was never far from theaters, resulting in five sequels. But now it appears that Paranormal Activity 7 is in the works, at least according to Jason Blum himself. As the producer recently revealed,
We are doing a new Paranormal Activity, we have Chris Landon…he’s coming up with Paranormal Activity 7.
Well, that's certainly exciting. It looks like more found footage horror is going to be headed to theaters with a whopping seventh Paranormal Activity movie. While it's story remains a mystery, franchise favorite Chris Landon will also be working on the new movie. Cue the terrified applause.
Jason Blum's exciting Paranormal Activity update comes from the producer's recent appearance on the Evolution of Horror podcast. As the head of Blumhouse Studios, he's got his hands in quite a few cookie jars with the myriad projects that are heading to theaters over the next few months. But the studio is also looking ahead toward the future, including revitalizing the long running Paranormal Activity franchise.
The original Paranormal Activity movie was on of the first films to come out of Blumhouse Productions, and quickly established the studio as a great place to produce original horror content. And as a result, a new sequel arrived almost every year following, each making more money and helping to expand the world of witches and unseen malevolent forces.
After five sequels, it appeared the modern horror franchise would come to an end with 2015's Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension. Gregory Plotkin's sequel tied together the events of the entire property, introduction time travel to the property in the process. That sequel was billed as the final installment in the Paranormal Activity story, but horror franchises never stay dead for long.
As Jason Blum mentioned, Chris Landon is helping to develop Paranormal Activity's seventh movie. Landon has a long history with the franchise, having wrote Paranormal Activity 2-5 before eventually stepping away from the property. But he continues to work on Blumhouse projects like Happy Death Day and its sequel. But given his history with Paranormal Activity, smart money says he's cooking up a solid sequel for the long-running horror franchise.
Blumhouse's The Invisible Man is currently in theaters, with The Hunt and Halloween Kills coming down the pipeline later this year. In the meantime, check out our 2020 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
