Corona | Coming Attractions

Pseudo doc makers + script by Disturbia writer = Halloween release.

Bloody Disgusting and Dread Central have the exclusive scoop that Catfish creators Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman have landed Paranormal Activity 3. They’ll direct the script, written by Christopher B. Landon (Disturbia, Paranormal Activity 2), and get the Paramount Pictures release into theaters by October 21.

Love, hate or be ethically disturbed by what they did in their popular/controversial documentary, Joost and Schulman are now bumped up to Hollywood’s big leagues. (Okay, Hollywood's mini leagues of genre flicks, but that’s still pretty good.) Plot details are locked up tight.

This is the third Paranormal film in as many years. Not surprising, given the grosses of the first two films: the original cost only 15,000 (shot in creator Oren Peli's house with a handufl of unknown actors) and grossed over $193 million worldwide. Paranormal 2 cost $3 million and grossed $177 million.

It’s all the more ironic because Peli watched his first Paranormal languish for years as Paramount tried to decide what to do with it. For a major studio, Paranormal Activity was too small to release (one location, a handful of actors, no big special effects). At the time, Paramount was trying to figure out how to remake it into a major studio picture.

That is, until amazing buzz at festival screenings convinced Paramount to use Eventful.com to let people vote to bring Paranormal to their town, with the promise that if the film received one million “demands” the studio would release it nationwide. The buzz exploded, and after numerous Eventful-driven screenings the counter hit 1,000,000 and Peli’s little film that could was released theatrically (with a few tweaks suggested by Steven Spielberg (see an amazingly detailed, spoiler-laden list here). If that ain’t a Hollywood success story, I don’t know what is.

Peli will produce Paranormal 3 along with orSchulman and Jason Blum. Steven Schneider and the ubiquitous Akiva Goldsman executive produce. Peli, Blum, Schneider and Goldsman just watched their latest film, Insidious, become this year’s most profitable picture yet.

Plot details, as always, are being kept under wraps.