Jason Blum Is Ready To Kill The ‘Paranormal Activity’ Franchise: “It Has Been Enough Already”

Jason Blum and his Blumhouse production company are in the business of making money. Blum does this by greenlighting micro-budget films that aren’t going to lose a lot of money, and sometimes, as in the case of “Get Out,” will go on to become massive, award-winning hits. He’s a producer who often strikes out, but when he gets a hit, it might become a home run. But even Blumhouse has its limits, as we see with the “Paranormal Activity” franchise.

Speaking to Variety, Jason Blum spoke frankly about the future of a couple of his film franchises. In one of the examples, the upcoming sequel to “The Exorcist,” directed by David Gordon Green, Blum is really excited and thinks it’ll be a huge hit. In the other example, “Paranormal Activity,” the producer is ready to kill it off for good.

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“It has been enough already. That last ‘Paranormal Activity’ movie was terrible,” Blum admitted about his long-running horror franchise.

“Paranormal Activity” started strong back in 2007 with the original found-footage film. The massive success of that film really kickstarted Blumhouse and led to the creation of many, many sequels. Seven sequels, to be exact. The last of which, ‘The Other Side,’ was released earlier this year and was critically savaged. Now, Blum is ready to move on.

He added, “With ‘Halloween,’ we only had the rights to three movies, so we said: ‘Halloween Ends!’ It ends for Blumhouse, at least. With other things, you just have this feeling it’s time to put them to bed. It would come back if some director I love, like Scott Derrickson, said: ‘I have a great idea for a “Paranormal Activity” movie.’ But it’s not something I want to do [at the moment].”

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So, with “Paranormal Activity” in the rearview mirror, Blum has his sights set on the upcoming ‘Exorcist’ sequel, which he hopes will be the next “Halloween”-like hit for the studio. 

“We are getting ready to make it. Hopefully, we will do the same thing with ‘The Exorcist’ that we did with ‘Halloween’ – make it in a way that’s fresh and worth revisiting,” said the producer. “And feels different enough so that people are happy we did it.”

He added, “[Green] is very good at respecting intellectual property that already exists and putting a new spin on it.”

Much like the “Halloween” franchise, the “Exorcist” franchise started with a classic film and has since suffered with quite a few failed sequels. So, while the idea of trying to resuscitate “The Exorcist” seems like a bad idea, it really can’t be much worse than what has come before, right?

An exact release date for “The Exorcist” has yet to be announced.