It might be time for the Paranormal Activity series to end. At this point, seven installments have been released in the long-running horror franchise, and there's currently an eighth installment in the works. When that next film, Paranormal Activity: The Other Side, is released, it could very well serve as the final chapter of the series according to Blumhouse's Jason Blum.
In a new interview with Variety, Blum touches on the Paranormal Activity series. While the films have been incredibly lucrative in the past due to generating high box office sales with minuscule budgets, Blum suggests that this train might have run its course. He suggests that there's been "enough" of Paranormal Activity at this point and names last year's film, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, as what convinced him that it's finally come time to move on.
“It has been enough already. That last Paranormal Activity movie was terrible."
Originally, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension was developed with the intention of closing out the series, but those plans were changed with Next of Kin getting ordered to development in 2019. The standalone film follows a group of filmmakers working on a documentary about an Amish community that's said to be haunted. It was released directly to Paramount+ in 2021 where it was met with mostly negative reviews from viewers and critics alike. Perhaps the disappointing reception had Blum rethinking the decision to continue on with the series.
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In the case of Paranormal Activity 8, aka Paranormal Activity: The Other Side, the production seems to have lucked out by getting greenlit early. The sequel was announced very shortly after the release of Next of Kin and is said to be going back to the franchise's roots. The script comes from the original movie's writer-director Oren Peli and was expected to link back to that story. It follows a group of friends moving into Katie and Kristi's childhood home where they uncover secrets about the house's dark past.
Meanwhile, producer Jason Blum will be rolling the dice with another horror franchise following the success of the Halloween reboot films. He tells Variety that he will very soon start working on The Exorcist, a new legacy sequel that brings back original movie star Ellen Burstyn to continue the story. The film will be directed by Halloween helmer David Gordon Green and Blum hopes that this will reinvigorate the Exorcist series in a way that makes it feel fresh.
“We are getting ready to make it. Hopefully, we will do the same thing with ‘The Exorcist’ that we did with ‘Halloween’ – make it in a way that’s fresh and worth revisiting. And feels different enough so that people are happy we did it.
Paranormal Activity: The Other Side will be released on an unspecified date in 2023.