Ever since the first film earned a healthy profit off its meager (to put it mildly) budget, the “Paranormal Activity” series has been a mainstay of the Halloween movie season since 2009. And While “Paranormal Activity 5” was formerly scheduled for release in the series’ customary pre-Halloween slot, Paramount Pictures is shaking things up to make room for another of their cheapie, money-making franchises.
Rumored last year and then promptly forgotten about, “Jackass 4: Bad Grandpa” is not only real, it’s now coming to a theatre near you. How the spinoff character will sustain a full-length feature (or more realistically, something like 80 minutes) is anybody’s guess, but Paramount is banking on people showing up. And why not? Each movie in the series has made more than the last, with “Jackass 3D” topping $170 million worldwide. People really like watching grown men get hit in the nuts. Repeatedly.
In short, Paramount is banking on the fourth installment of a franchise being fresher to audiences than the fifth, so we suppose there’s a certain logic to that. And while The Wrap reported yesterday about the ‘PA 5’ delay that Paramount might be “second guessing themselves,” it seems they know exactly what they’re doing, and have handled this release-date-shuffle thing with ease before. (Oh, btw, “World War Z”? It has now made more domestically than “Rise Of The Planet The Apes.”)
“Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa” arrives on October 25th, with “Paranormal Activity 5” filling seats on January 3rd. —additional reporting by Cain Rodriguez