A new installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise has been in the works for months, with the new entry in the found-footage franchise confirmed to be debuting on streaming service Paramount+ ahead of Halloween. Additionally, that won’t be the only Paranormal Activity content coming to the service in time for the frightful holiday, as the service will also be debuting a documentary that will reportedly chronicle how this latest installment came to life. While a specific release date has yet to be unveiled, we can expect them to premiere ahead of October 31st, though they could arrive much earlier in October.
“A new Paranormal Activity from Paramount Players should bring fans an unexpected reimagining of the beloved horror franchise,” Tanya Giles, Chief Programming Officer, ViacomCBS Streaming, revealed during a TCA press event. “We’ll also be launching a documentary on the making of the Paranormal Activity feature. Both of which will be coming to the service in time for Halloween.”
As is the nature of all films in the series, details about the actual narrative have been kept under wraps, with the TCA presentation withholding any information about what the new adventure might explore. The new film was written by Christopher Landon and directed by William Eubank, which stars Emily Bader (Broken Visions, Charmed), Roland Buck III (Chicago Med, Better Call Saul), Dan Lippert (The Grand Slams, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and Henry Ayers-Brown (Blacklist, The Deuce).
The first film in the franchise hit theaters back in 2009, ultimately earning five follow-up films, many of which were unveiled on an annual basis in subsequent Octobers. Over those initial six films, the series jumped forward and backward in time, sometimes even shifting laterally to explore new characters with unexpected connections to the core mythology.
“Paramount wanted to continue Paranormal Activity, I probably would have left it alone. So they wanted to continue it, but I thought if they were gonna continue it, you gotta — it was tired, there was no way to continue the road that we’d been down,” Blum detailed to Collider of his reaction to doing a new installment. “So I really encouraged all the creative people involved to think of something new. A lot of people who are going to go see the new Paranormal Activity were 3 years old when the first Paranormal Activity came out, so they don’t even know from those older movies. I thought if you were going to re-do it, you better really re-do it, not try and expand what we did all those years ago.”
Stay tuned for details on the new Paranormal Activity and documentary before it lands on Paramount+ ahead of Halloween.
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