Prolific low-budget horror producer Jason Blum had a good year at the box office in 2013, with The Purge and Insidious: Chapter 2 performing well financially; even the less popular Keri Russell alien invasion thriller Dark Skies was able to turn a profit, thank to its relatively small cost. 2014 is already look bright for Blum, who has two Paranormal Activity movies, a sequel to The Purge and the board game spinoff Ouija arriving next year.
Insidious: Chapter 3 isn’t scheduled for release until 2015, but that hasn’t prevented Blum from looking ahead to what comes afterwards. In addition, the producer has confirmed that a found-footage installment in the Amityville Horror franchise still has a beating pulse, even though it’s been some two years since the project was indefinitely shelved.
Crave Online recently interviewed Blum, with the discussion ranging from general topics like how the producer approaches sequels (“[It] has to be new enough [but] not so different that they feel like, ‘Why is this a sequel?…’”) to his preferred artistic mode of operation (“I’m a big believer in creating parameters for creativity”) and more specific issues, such as whether or not Blum feels that all of the Paranormal Activity sequels made to date have ‘worked’ (he said one didn’t – we’d bet it’s Paranormal Activity 4).
Eventually, the talk turned to the possibility of an Insidious TV spinoff down the line:
“I’d like to do that. I don’t think you can do that while we’re still making movies. Now Leigh [Whannel] is writing the third Insidious, so we have to see how far we can take the series of movies […] but I believe very strongly that once that kind of comes to a close you can do a series, and I think soon we’ll be in a place where you can have a series at the same time. Although right now people are too nervous to have that.”
Insidious does lend itself to a TV series format, more so now (SPOILERS) that the story of the haunting of the Lambert family has (for all intents and purposes) been concluded and the franchise will (seemingly…) henceforth follow the adventures of bumbling paranormal investigators Specs (Whannel) and Tucker (Angus Sampson), along with the friendly ghost of Elise (Lin Shaye). A TV spinoff might essentially amount to the Insidious version of The Real Ghostbusters animated series.
Blum’s previous attempts to export the found-footage cinema format to the small screen did not prove fruitful either creatively or financially, between the short-lived The River TV series and the decidedly mixed reception for the Syfy mini-series, Stranded (both of which rely on a variation of the Blumhouse staple do-it-yourself aesthetic).
He is currently developing a new horror/thriller series called Eye Candy, featuring a pilot directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight). However, even if that show fails to takeoff, Blumhouse Productions might not need to tweak its ‘parameters’ for a potential Insidious TV spinoff (even one that involves brand-new characters), since the movies’ low-budget concept – which is not found-footage – doesn’t come with the same limitations.
However, as far as film goes, found-footage is still par the course for Blumhouse projects. Case in point, Blum dismissed rumors that the long-mooted Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes project had been permanently put out to pasture:
“Nope. Still going, still going, still going, still going. We’re going to make that movie and it’s very cool. But I don’t quite know yet when.”
For those who have forgotten – it has been a couple years after all – The Lost Tapes will apparently shed a light on what happened when “an ambitious female television news intern” decided to investigate the truth behind the infamous Amityvillle ‘incident’ in 1976, as revealed through recovered footage. As it were, Amityville Horror isn’t the only iconic horror franchise that could get a found-footage makeover in the near future, as the next Friday the 13th installment (releasing in 2015) is rumored to use the format.
Of course, public interest in the Amityville Horror property received a bit of a boost, after the real-life event which inspired it was referenced in the closing minutes of this year’s other hit from Insidious director James Wan, The Conjuring (though, the sequel to that spooky flick is headed in a different direction). That may offer further assurance that The Lost Tapes will eventually see the light of day.
Are you interested in seeing either an Insidious TV series and/or Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes?
Randy
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