Paranormal Activity - New Horror Movie is the Next Blair Witch

Picking a bunch of teenage kids as their audience was a smart move. They scare and scream quite easily.

That being said the trailer did catch my interest. Guess we'll see how it does.
And not to insult anyone... but I want credible budget links before I believe the hype.
I'm not saying it was expensive to make, it looks like it was done on the cheap. I'm more concerned with the marketing campaign figures.

MAH
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Nice article and a great story for independent filmmakers.
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It really is. It's interesting to me how the perfect storm of circumstances came together to make it happen. Like even two years ago when the film was finished, the viral campaign would not have been an option because even that recently, it was not that prevalent.

Then you have Paramount in a shaky enough position for this producer to make it happen.

It's a good lesson for filmmakers to build their catalogs I think. You never know if something will catch a year, two years, down the road.

Will be interested to see what happens too. And if the studios can get wise and really leverage this "follow the money" marketing, and lower marketing costs, it can only be a good thing. Costs to market a film now are just stupid.
 
The movie was shot in 7 days at Peli's house, it did not take 2 years to complete it as the article says, it sat on A. Goodmans shelf for 2 years and Ashley (Dreamworks employee who discovered it at Slam Dance) kept bugging him and bugging him about it. Actually Peli owes his new carreer to Ashley.

To bad Blum & Scheinder didn't personally 4 wall this movie on their own, they should have, it's not like Paramount is spending the bucks on it at this stage, they don't need too. It is self marketing.
 
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For those of you who don't know, Blum has a producing deal with Paramount (prior to this movie) so if he ask's for a release they'll take a good look at it. Lucky for him at this stage it was done on less than $100k (about what the senior exec team spends on a friday night party)
 
Mark Harris said:
It really is. It's interesting to me how the perfect storm of circumstances came together to make it happen. Like even two years ago when the film was finished, the viral campaign would not have been an option because even that recently, it was not that prevalent.

Then you have Paramount in a shaky enough position for this producer to make it happen.

It's a good lesson for filmmakers to build their catalogs I think. You never know if something will catch a year, two years, down the road.

Will be interested to see what happens too. And if the studios can get wise and really leverage this "follow the money" marketing, and lower marketing costs, it can only be a good thing. Costs to market a film now are just stupid.
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Exactly.

Funny note, the two comments on the article are not interested in the movie due to the Blair Witch comparison. The shaky cam gave them a headache.
Did they even watch the trailer?? It's nothing like the way BW was shot.

Mike
 
Great find Mark. Read the article. It shows that it doesn't just take making a good movie, it takes luck as well, those guys had luck on their side for things to happen the way they did. I'm sure a lot of hard work also went into things. Ultimately though it all starts with making a good film. Though I haven't seen it yet to know if it's a good film or not but if it scares Spielberg it can't be all that bad, Bravo to the those guys, I love hearing stories like this about filmmakers catching a big break.
 
I saw it in Chicago last friday, it does start out slow, almost unbearably so, but when the freaky stuff starts it does creep you out.
 
Yeah, it looks like it's showing on 42nd st in NYC. Going to go check it next week. My GF will not see these kinds of movies, so if anyone in NY wants to come and give me something to hold onto when I scream like a little girl, hit me up.
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Exactly.

Funny note, the two comments on the article are not interested in the movie due to the Blair Witch comparison. The shaky cam gave them a headache.
Did they even watch the trailer?? It's nothing like the way BW was shot.

Mike
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One of my favorite bits from a critic on Rotten Tomatoes is this one:

"Placing a camera on a tripod suddenly seems revolutionary" :happy:

I'm really hyped to see this one.
 
When the director of "Jaws" says your movie is too scary to watch all the way through, you know you've hit the mark.
 
I have never seen a movie on Rotten Tomatoes go from 93% to 94% and now at a 95% rating & it's a $15k movie shot in 7 days. :) They are starting to roll out some small advertising on MTV, E! and a few other cable nets. As of today 650,000+ have logged on to the website to request it in their city (you have to go through a process and enter your email, not as easy as clicking on one button then being done with it so that says a lot!), 4 days ago that number was at 200,000. If it hits 1 million requests it is going to open on a major release, I'm sure it will be over 1 million by the end of this weekend.

EDIT: I just recieved an email from them, they are having it play on one screen tonight at midnight in my town, I'm going to go check it out!


EDIT #2: So much for that, they sold out tonight, Fri & Sat in less than an hour.
 
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Mark Harris said:
Yeah, it looks like it's showing on 42nd st in NYC. Going to go check it next week. My GF will not see these kinds of movies, so if anyone in NY wants to come and give me something to hold onto when I scream like a little girl, hit me up.
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I didn't know it was playing in the greatest city in the world. Thanks for the heads up. I will be coming in to see it. PM me if you want to hook up, but you are going to have to hold onto your box of popcorn instead when you scream. I hope I don't wet my seat.
 
I just saw it. Midnight showing, opening day here in NC.


Movies don't scare me. X Files freaked me out when I was a kid, and the movie did too (the aliens, really, really well done).

Blair Witch didn't scare me but I absolutely LOVED the idea of it. Sitting in my mind placing myself in those shoes, I almost started second-guessing camping for a little while.

This movie was a wonderful exception. It was wonderfully done. Slow starter but holy crap, what a great finish. It's nothing new or revolutionary I think, but executed in a chillful manner. It's the spirit of the season (HAaaaaaa....Spirit.....), you watch gleeful Christmas movies at christmas, you try and freak yourself out a bit at Halloween. This is that movie to do so. In an age of bloated budgets, it's really nice to see what some simple AfterEffects and magician's wire can do. Simple, funny, creepy, "WTF"ific, great job.
 
This played in Ann Arbor last weekend, and the line for tickets at the theater was down the street and around the block. I've heard more about this movie through word of mouth than I have marketing, which makes me really think I'd enjoy it.
 
I thought this movie was mostly terrible. I left the theater with a sense of what did I just spend my hard earned dough on? I hope Andrew Kramer of Videocopilot.net gets credit for that end bit lol. I cannot deny the power of their marketing campaign because I was really up to see this film, but it was not even close to Blair Witch. Dov Simens course was put to excellent use here.
 
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It hit over 1 million requests yesterday, looks like a major release is coming beyond the 40ish markets it's playing in this weekend.

This movie is now being called "A freight train coming!"

"Rival studios are salivating over the box office potential of the Paramount pickup Paranormal Activity, which opened September 25th playing only midnight shows. But it did so well that Paramount expanded Friday, and the pic will reward that confidence with a per screen average Friday north of $15,875. That gives it $2.5M this weekend on a paltry 159 locations! and prob $5.5M for the weekend. "Look out cuz there's a freight train coming, and Paramount is going to make a TON of cash on this pickup. Cuz they ain't spending anything on it, and who knows where the ceiling is!" one rival studio exec gushed to me. I'm told this #5 pic could make the most gross of any film on less than 200 screens. Limited releases not adjusted for inflation or ticket prices were 1986's Platoon $3.7M on 174 screens, 2000's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon $3.4M on 172 screens, and 2007'sNo Country For Old Men $3.1M on 148 screens."
 
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They just announced the major release is Friday Oct 16 guess I'll have to wait until then, it is sold out here.
 
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