Sometimes you can’t justify it, and then you have a problem. ![]() Let someone else come in with a fresh idea for the story and fresh eyes for directing.Ī. The movie became a huge hit and exceeded everyone’s expectations. I spent two years making the movie and two years waiting for its eventual distribution. ![]() Why didn’t you direct any more “Paranormal” movies?Ī., Honestly, I was burned out. DreamWorks wanted an ending that would be universally approved by the audience. Once DreamWorks came into the mix, we got the seal of approval from the big guy, Steven Spielberg, but when we did test screenings, people were not crazy about the original ending. Before the first film was released in theaters, your original ending was changed. I thought, if ever I have an idea, I’ll do the same. But then I saw “The Blair Witch Project” and looked at other films like “El Mariachi” and “Open Water,” where the filmmakers picked up a video camera and made a movie. Up until then, I thought, to be a filmmaker, you need to go to film school, you need to work your way up and maybe you’ll get a chance to direct a movie. It wasn’t so much that I hated the programming part, but I hated most of my co-workers. I was working as a video game programmer. I wanted to make a movie that would do well enough that I could quit my day job. What were your goals when you were making the first “Paranormal Activity”?Ī. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation. Peli explained what he thought of the found-footage genre now, why he directed only the first film and what he had learned from fans of the franchise. Peli, 45, has had a producer credit on all of the films. Other directors helmed the movies and new writers were hired, but Mr. After Paramount released it in 2009, “Paranormal Activity” earned more than $100 million at the box office and led to ”Paranormal” 2, 3 and 4 and “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones” that would bring the series domestic total to $380 million. The film played the Screamfest Horror Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2007 and eventually caught the attention of Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks. The film forced audiences to search the screen in silence for evidence of paranormal activity, first with subtlety, then with increasing intensity. ![]() Its scariest moments came courtesy of a stationary video camera set up in the corner of a bedroom. The first movie was shot in 2006 in the home of its writer and director, Oren Peli. The “Paranormal Activity” series started as a ghost story made on a shoestring budget. Paramount has said the six-film series, which uses a found-footage format to track a ghostly presence in a variety of suburban homes, will end with the 3-D “Ghost Dimension,” opening Friday. After six years of doors slamming ominously, sheets moving eerily and bodies levitating mysteriously, the “Paranormal Activity” franchise is reaching a conclusion.
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