Movies
‘Paranormal’ Director Heads to ‘Area 51’ Next Week
As Paramount Pictures broadens Paranormal Activity from underground midnight screenings to round-the-clock showings in 40 cities this weekend, writer-director Oren Peli has already scared up a start date and the financing for his follow-up. He starts production next week on Area 51, which will employ the “found footage” narrative structure of his last film and tell the story of three teens whose curiosity leads them to the notorious “Area 51” part of Nellis Air Force Base in the Nevada desert.
“Paranormal Activity” cost just $11,000; this time Peli will be working with a relatively whopping $5 million budget, with financing locked through Aramid Entertainment Fund and Incentive Filmed Entertainment. IM Global will handle worldwide sales, while CAA will shoot for a domestic deal.
Returning as producer is Jason Blum, who produced “Paranormal Activity” through his Blumhouse Prods. banner. Room 101’s Steven Schneider and IM Global topper Stuart Ford are executive producers.
“I’d rather not say anything about ‘Area 51’ except that I am very pleased to be working with the same team who stood by me for the two or three years it took ‘Paranormal Activity’ to get into theaters,” Peli said.
David Molner, chairman of Incentive and Aramid Capital Partners, said the early returns on “Paranormal Activity” reminded him of the word of mouth momentum built years ago by “The Blair Witch Project.”
“Everyone looks for a franchise, and we really think Incentive has found its first one in this new property from Oren and Jason,” Molner told Daily Variety. “These are two first-class talents.”
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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