Slamdance Horror Flick ‘Paranormal Activity’: DreamWorks’s ‘Cloverfield’?

Paranormal Activity, the horror movie whose premiere at last week’s Slamdance led some people — well, us — to speculate as to whether it could be the next Cloverfield, moved another step in that direction today. DreamWorks has acquired the film, a vérité supernatural thriller that revolves around surveillance tapes of a haunted house, and intends to throw a bunch of money at director Oren Peli to remake it. Peli is thrilled, of course, telling the L.A. Times, “It’s definitely very exciting. Now we can try to do some things that were not possible before.�

Will one of those “things that were not possible before� be replacing all of Paranormal’s cast of unknowns with Sarah Michelle Gellar? (The original film will be released in foreign markets and on domestic DVD alongside the remake.) We hope not! Because Cloverfield’s success should have reminded Hollywood that concept can trump casting if the concept is good enough. And a movie filled with no-names can still make a hell of a lot of money.

DreamWorks to remake ‘Paranormal Activity’ [LAT]

Earlier: Is a Slamdance Horror Movie the Next ‘Cloverfield’?