Paranormal expands

Paramount has hit the big time with PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, the “BLAIR WITCH in a house” horror film currently selling out in theaters nationwide. And by “in theaters nationwide” I mean that the film has been playing at 12 theaters in college towns across the country, three times a week (midnight showings on Thurs, Fri and Sat), but has produced such high revenues ($16,000 per theater), Paramount is expanding release to more than 40 theaters, and starting to offer showtimes other than midnight.

This is good news, because even though I live in one such college town that was showing the movie (Ann Arbor) I never felt like spending a Friday night camped out on State St. to get tickets for a midnight show, during a time period where I could in fact be drinking heavily. All I ever asked for was an expansion of showtimes other than the ludicrous midnight slot, and thank God that’s coming true. For studios’ future reference, just because you’re showing a movie late, it doesn’t make it scary, it’s just annoying.

So even though 40 theaters isn’t exactly wide release, it does indicate that this film may start following a BLAIR WITCH trajectory and expand to a few thousand in due time. Impressive for a film that literally has not had a marketing campaign other than word of mouth, as if you’ll recall, BLAIR WITCH was doing viral marketing before it was even called “viral marketing.” I think PARANORMAL could benefit from a similar campaign as it starts to expand outward.