Development
First-time director Oren Peli had been afraid of ghosts his whole life, even fearing the comedy film Ghostbusters , but intended to channel that fear into something positive and productive. Peli took a year to prepare his own house for shooting, going so far as to repaint the walls, add furniture, put in a carpet, and build a stairwell. In this time, he also did extensive research into paranormal phenomena and demonology stating, "We wanted to be as truthful as we could be." The decision to make the supernatural entity in the story a demon was a result of the research pointing to the most malevolent and violent entities being "demons."
The phenomena in the film take place largely at night—the vulnerability of being asleep, Peli reasoned, taps into a human being's most primal fear, stating, "If something is lurking in your home there's not much you can do about it."
Attempting to focus on believability rather than action and gore, Peli chose to shoot the picture with a home video camera. In deciding on a more raw and stationary format (the camera was almost always sitting on a tripod or something else) and eliminating the need for a camera crew, a "higher degree of plausibility" was created for the audience and they were "more invested in the story and the characters". Peli says that the dialogue was "natural" because there was no real script. Instead, the actors were given outlines of the story and situations to improvise, a technique known as "retroscripting" used in the making of The Blair Witch Project .
In casting the movie, Peli auditioned "a few hundred people" before finally meeting Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. He originally auditioned them individually and later called them back to audition together. Peli was impressed with the chemistry between the actors, saying, "If you saw the footage, you would've thought they had known each other for years." During a guest appearance on The Jay Leno Show on November 3, 2009, Sloat and Featherston explained they each saw the casting call on LACasting. Featherston noted they were originally paid $500 for their work. The film was shot out of sequence due to Peli's self-imposed seven-day shooting schedule, though Peli would have preferred the story unfold for the actors as he had envisioned it. Sloat, who controlled the camera for a good deal of the film, was a former cameraman at his university's TV station. "It was a very intense week", Peli recalled, stating that the film would be shot day and night, edited at the same time, and would have the visual effects applied to it as the acting footage was being finalized.
Paramount and DreamWorks hired screenwriter Michael R. Perry to create Paranormal Activity 2 . Oren Peli, the director of the first film, served as a producer for this prequel. Kevin Greutert, director of Saw VI , was initially hired to direct the prequel; however, Lions Gate Entertainment exercised a clause in Greutert's contract to have him direct the final film in the Saw film series. Both of the actors from the first film, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, reprise their roles in the prequel. Tod Williams directed Paranormal Activity 2, which started production in May 2010 and was released in October the same year.
Paranormal Activity 3 and 4 were directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, documentary filmmakers who were well-known for their feature debut Catfish . Production on the third entry began in June, 2011, with a release October 21 of the same year. Filming for the fourth film commenced in June, 2012, with a release of October 19.
A Latin American-themed fifth film, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones was released on January 3, 2014. Oren Peli, the creator of the franchise, returned to produce the film, while Christopher Landon, a screenwriter who had worked on the prior three entries in the series, served as the writer and director.
The sixth film in the series, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension , [7] was announced to be released on October 25, 2013. [8] However, in August 2013, the release date was pushed back to October 24, 2014. [9]
On September 17, 2014, the film's title was finalized and the release date was set on March 27, 2015, [10] later changed to October 23, 2015. [7]
In September 2013, it was confirmed that Gregory Plotkin, a film editor who had edited every release in the series since Paranormal Activity 2, would make his directorial debut with the sixth film. [11] [12] Oren Peli, the creator of the franchise, and Jason Blum would return to produce the sixth film. In late September 2013, Paramount hired Almanac writers Jason Pagan and Andrew Stark to write the screenplay. [13] Though series writer Christopher Landon said that several sequels would follow The Ghost Dimension to wrap up the story, [14] producer Jason Blum later confirmed that the film would indeed be the last in the series. [15]
He said:
"It’s coming to an end. This is it, the finale. We’re saying it before the movie opens. We’re not going to grind this horror franchise into the ground. This will keep Paranormal Activity as part of this culture and this particular time in a really fantastic way… All the questions that everyone has asked from the past 'Paranormal Activity' films: What does Tob- look like? What’s the backstory to the families? These questions have been teased out. Now they will be answered."
A seventh film was released on October 29, 2021.
