Paranormal Activity is getting Paranormal Re-activated

This is according to Deadline, which reports that Paramount and the merged Blumhouse-Atomic Monster will soon be reviving the series, originally created by first film writer/director/star Oran Peli. (Among other things, that means that another huge name in modern horror, James Wan, will be producing on the series for the first time, with the Conjuring mastermind joining Peli and a number of other established horror producers on the incoming film.)

What we don’t have yet, though, is a premise—which has kind of always been the issue for a series that made a huge initial splash when it first arrived sporting a genuinely interesting gimmick, and then spent the next 12 years failing to find anything especially compelling to do with it. (The answer has mostly been to try to build up ever-more elaborate mythology around the films’ central family and their relationship with less-imaginary-than-you’d-like friend “Tobi,” but it’s notable that sequels have gotten more credit for finding weird places to stick a security camera than in their overall storytelling.) All that being said, Paranormal Activity has been very good to Paramount in terms to getting a lot of money out of very little investment, which helps explain why this eighth installment of the franchise is apparently being treated like a “priority” project right now.