Paramount has set a new official release date for Paranormal Activity 5 – the sixth installment in the found-footage horror franchise overall (counting this year’s spinoff The Marked Ones), and the next chapter to build directly on the events of Paranormal Activity 4. This new helping of micro-budgeted spookiness will keep the subtitle practice going for the series after The Marked Ones, by hitting theaters under the title Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension.
The Ghost Dimension script by Jason Pagan and Andrew Stark – the writing duo behind next year’s time-travel found-footage adventure Project Almanac – is said to involve a different family, who are haunted by familiar supernatural forces after the silly humans (what else?) move into a new house. Gregory Plotkin, who edited every one of the previous Paranormal Activity films (save for the first one), is making his debut as a feature director with Ghost Dimension.
Paramount has settled on a March 13th, 2015 release date for Ghost Dimension, after having delayed it from its original Fall 2014 launch date. The studio was also reported to have considered a Fall 2015 release instead for the movie, not that long after it publicly indicated the film might be just one of the many 2016 franchise titles that Paramount is developing (Star Trek 3, G.I. Joe 3, etc.).
The movie will take the place of the studio’s Scouts vs. Zombies movie – a horror/comedy directed by The Marked Ones helmsman Christopher B. Landon – which has been bumped up a month to a February 20th, 2015 release date. Ghost Dimension will now serve as counter-programming to Disney’s live-action Cinderella and Ron Howard’s Heart of the Sea (a drama about the real-life events that inspired the novel “Moby Dick”).
Ghost Dimension‘s story will supposedly connect to The Marked Ones and continue to move this franchise towards a pre-planned final destination… or, at the very least, that is what the Paranormal Activity series’ creators have claimed. At this stage in the game, though, many filmgoers who turned out for the first handful of movies in this franchise have jumped off the Paranormal Activity bandwagon completely.
Why? Well, the list of popular complaints include the claim that recent installments just complicated the over-arching mythology – but without adding much of value to it, that is. Meanwhile, others have cited diminishing returns in the scares department for the most recent chapters, especially as more found-footage horror films have flooded the marketplace – and offered the same thing as Paranormal Activity, only better (or no worse).
That said, the Paranormal Activity films are so cheap and easy to produce – by studio movie standards – that the brand continues to be very profitable. So, here’s to hoping Ghost Dimension offers those who do still count themselves as Paranormal Activity fans something worthwhile for their money.
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension opens in U.S. theaters on March 13th, 2015.
