“Paranormal Activity” was hardly a typical studio production. Oren Peli, an Israeli-born video game designer who had no formal film training, shot the $15,000 movie in a week in 2006 with a no-name cast, a crew of several San Diego friends and a hand-held video camera.
But as Steven Spielberg and the DreamWorks team believed, the movie held a special appeal — it was original and scary.
The challenge was to fit this round peg into a DreamWorks square hole, a process that would ultimately take more than a year and a half, the delay exacerbated by the slow collapse of Paramount’s acquisition of DreamWorks.
For a time, it looked as if “Paranormal Activity” appeared cursed — to sit on a shelf.
But now, supported by one of the more unusual marketing and distribution strategies conjured up for a studio release, Paramount is finally opening the film in 13 college towns today, including Seattle, with a wider national rollout planned for mid-October.
Scary movies are a dime a dozen these days — at least 75 horror movies have been released theatrically in the last three years — and “Paranormal Activity” doesn’t have the franchise awareness or recognizable actors that help separate a handful of genre films from the teeming herd.
Yet as preview and film festival audiences can attest, “Paranormal Activity” exhibits something many fright flicks don’t — goose-bump inducing, gore-free scares.
“The movie could be stratospheric, or it could just become a cult favorite,” said Stuart Ford, the chief executive of international sales agent IM Global, which sold “Paranormal Activity” to more than 50 foreign distributors. “It just depends on whether the studio can catch a wave.”
“Paranormal Activity” has beaten the odds before.
“Once every five years, a guy makes a movie for a nickel that can cross over to a broad audience,” said “Paranormal Activity” producer Jason Blum, a senior executive at Miramax Films.
“And there are about 3,000 of these movies made every year, so this film is about one in 15,000.”
In late 2007, Blum’s producing partner Steven Schneider came across “Paranormal Activity,” which follows a young couple who videotape themselves (including their nocturnal activities) to figure out who — or what — is tormenting them at night.
An assistant at the Creative Artists Agency had seen Peli’s movie in 2007’s Screamfest Film Festival, and CAA, which signed Peli, sent out DVDs to anyone who would take one, looking for a theatrical distributor for the film and future jobs for Peli as a director.
No one stepped up to distribute the movie, but Schneider and Blum thought Peli’s first feature was so compelling that it deserved better.
Peli had grown up fearing phantoms — he couldn’t even stomach “Ghostbusters” — and channeled that fear into a relatively simple story about a young couple (Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston play the man and woman, also named Micah and Katie) who hear some very strange bumps in the night.
Determined to discover the source of the disturbance, Micah starts videotaping everything, taunting the demon to show itself — which it ultimately does (in a manner of speaking). The acting is intentionally unpolished, as is the herky-jerky camera work.
Ashley Brooks, a production executive at DreamWorks, was one of the only studio types who believed in “Paranormal Activity,” and continually pestered her boss, production chief Adam Goodman, to watch the movie.
Goodman finally did, and on his and studio chief Stacey Snider’s recommendation, so did Spielberg.
“It’s what you don’t see that scares you,” Goodman said. “What’s really scary in the movie is a door closing half an inch.”
The DreamWorks deal for “Paranormal Activity” didn’t include a theatrical release.
Instead, the studio planned to remake the film, with Peli directing the bigger-budgeted version (his original film would be included with the remake’s DVD).
But the film’s fate was about to change yet again.
“Basically, everything between DreamWorks and Paramount was put on hold, and we didn’t know where the movie was going to end up,” said Peli, who’s about to start filming his second feature, “Area 51,” an original, found-video thriller.
Yet even as it sat on Paramount’s shelf, “Paranormal Activity” continued to generate interest.
In November 2008, Ford’s IM Global showed the film to international buyers.
Stuart invited dozens of older teens and young adults to sit with 150 buyers in a Santa Monica theater.
“It was nothing short of riotous,” Stuart said. “In the next 24 hours, we sold out all the international rights in 52 countries.”
But it was not until Goodman took Paramount’s top production job in June 2009 that “Paranormal Activity” found a place on the studio’s fall schedule.
Tonight, Paramount will take the film to midnight screenings in college towns. After that? The audience will decide.
Want to see it?
Paramount’s expectation is that as word-of-mouth builds, people who haven’t seen the film will use the Demand Web site at eventful.com/demand to request that the studio book the movie in their towns.
The Internet service has been used by music fans who want bands to play a local gig; Paramount says the “Paranormal Activity” application is Demand’s first for a movie.
Los Angeles Times
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
