Variety is reporting what shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who watched Paramount Pictures market Oren Peli’s $15,000 supernatural thriller Paranormal Activity to a box office total of $106 million last month – that the studio has indeed picked up the rights to distribute the filmmaker’s $5 million follow-up Area 51, at least in the United States.
Like the surprise fall hit, Peli wrote and directed the movie and it’s being produced by Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions using the same “found footage” structure to tell the story of three teens whose curiosity leads them to the notorious Area 51 portion of Nellis Air Force Base in the Nevada desert.
Paramount made a high seven-figure to co-finance the film with Incentive Filmed Entertainment and the Aramid Entertainment Fund as well as any potential sequels at the recent American Film Market, where the movie was one of the hot properties up for sale.
The movie has already been filmed with unknown actors Reid Warner, Darrin Bragg and Ben Rovner and is currently in post-production. The article mentions that Peli will work on another installment of “Paranormal Activity” for Paramount after its completion.
You can read more about the way the deal went down over at Variety.
