After a few weeks of sold out midnight screenings, Paramount Pictures' $11k indie haunt film has pulled in an estimates $7 MILLION over the course of its full limited release this past weekend.

What will happen when this goes wide on Friday?

Will we have another Blair Witch on our hands?

It looks highly possible and it's all because of you, the audiences. Like it or not, cherish this moment, you guys pushed a little indie film through the cracks and left big Hollywood scratching their heads.

Following 2-weeks of nationwide midnight-only sellouts and fan frenzy over the limited release hit thriller Paranormal Activity, moviegoers everywhere have been heard!

Over 1,000,000 people from around the country demanded the film play in their city by logging on to ParanormalMovie.com.

In response, Paramount Pictures will release the film nationwide beginning Friday, October 16th. Mark your calendars, it's on!

Get ahead of the game as tickets for the movie will be on sale via ParanormalMovie.com by 5pm PST on Tuesday, October 13th. Those who have ‘demanded it’ will get the first alert when tickets go on sale.

“From the very beginning, we put this film in the hands of the fans and we trusted them to tell us where and when it should be seen. We couldn’t be more thrilled by their overwhelming support and we are happy to release the film in every town - big and small,” said Rob Moore, Vice Chairman of Paramount Pictures.

The movie Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times called ““an ingenious horror film. It’s so well made it’s truly scary” is currently garnering 90% on RottenTomatoes.com.

To find show times and to buy tickets in your area, visit ParanormalMovie.com.

I did sign the online "demand it" to get the film in theaters. Then after seeing the film I checked back to the site and watched the counter go to 1,000,000 the only problem was that there was a pattern to the count would increase by 4 then by 3 then by 4 then by 3. So looks like it was just a fake count just to raise interest.
But I really liked it.

Paranormal Activity
 

Has anyone seen this yet? Is it really as terrifying as the previews claim? I'm wanting to see this one...

Paranormal Activity, which stands at number five on the American and Canadian box office charts, may be arguably the biggest success of the decade.

The movie, which cost an unbelievably low $15,000 (less than the cost of a minute of screen time of a big budget summer blockbuster film), grossed about $7 million from just about 160 screens in North America. It started with midnight screenings on college campuses three weeks ago with little Internet advertising.

Even if it were to drop by 50 percent in the coming weeks, Paranormal may end up with at least $20 million in North America, with the possibility of doing better business abroad.

Many people, including critics, are comparing it to The Blair Witch Project -- another film costing hardly anything, which came from nowhere, built a cult following, and then burst into the mainstream and earned about $250 million worldwide in 1999. That horror film was made for $60,000 and caught on with the younger viewers thanks to the Internet buzz. It made about $29 million in its opening weekend in North America.

Hollywood insiders do not expect Paranormal to be as huge a hit as Blair Witch but the former has already become hugely profitable. A movie has to earn (in theatres and through ancillary sales) about 50 percent of its production and advertising costs to break even.

The lovers of psychological thrillers and horror movies may readily confess that Paranormal is not Rosemary's Baby, the classic horror film directed by Roman Polanski. Most of the reviews for the new film aren't inspiring. But word of mouth has been strong.

Israeli-born writer-director Oren Peli, a video-game designer for about a decade, shot the film in his house in Los Angeles with hardly any money, no stars and no studio backing till the film was shown at the Sundance film festival.

Peli tells the story of a middle-class San Diego couple Micah (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherston) haunted by strange noises in their new home. Micah sets up night-vision camera and a roving camcorder in their bedroom. Katie has a history of otherworldly encounters, going back to her childhood. The young couple also calls a psychic. But their problems just get louder and scarier.

It is not that all critics disliked the film. Los Angeles Times' Betsy Sharkey wrote: Peli 'has created a psychological thriller of such small scale and yet such heightened effect that no doubt Hitchcock, wherever he may be, is smiling.

'Though the story does not have either the sophistication or the complexity of the master, the first-time director understands that it's what you don't see, and the way in which you don't see it, that counts.'

Roger Ebert wrote in Chicago-Sun Times: 'An ingenious horror film. It's so well made it's truly scary.'

MTV.com, which is owned by Paramount, gives credit to the film's success to the grass-root strategy by the studio-distributor.

When Paramount started showing the film on campuses, 'it also harnessed the power of social gathering through sites like Twitter and Eventful, fans,' MTV com said. Students in the cities that the film was not showing were encouraged to 'demand' midnight shows.

On the Website for the film, Paramount declared: The first-ever major film release decided by you.

With the Internet and word of mouth creating huge publicity for the film over a month, Paramount took the first big step of releasing the film for regular screenings. Next week, the distributor could expand the film to 300 screens or more.

The movie could have been released two years ago when Steven Spielberg and other DreamWorks executives first saw it. Focus screenings also created a big buzz for the film then.

'Unfortunately, business got in the way when Paramount and DreamWorks split in 2008, and the Paranormal release was delayed,' notes MTV. Com. 'Buzz was out though, and it wouldn't be silenced. It only grew through Paramount's -- who took the reins post-DreamWorks -- aggressive grassroots campaigning.'

Paramount, which also released Rosemary's Baby more four decades ago, is indeed lucky. With Paranormal, it could have one of the most profitable films of all time.

Grrr....I hate to wait for this one.:mad:

Are you kidding me?
 

Hey there all, first time poster here...

Let me first explain where I'm coming from... I am a LONG time horror fan. I have seen almost everything from the most tame to the most bloody, gory, scary etc... i LOVE horror.

My wife and I went and saw PA last week. This movie was AWEFULL! it was not the least bit scary at all. the first hour was nothing at all, then the last half hour when things started to happen... is seeing a shadow on a door really scary? footprints in flour? a girl getting dragged down a hallway? a ouja board bursting into flames? come on. is this really waht people are considering a good scary movie?

Seeing the reactions of the crown i was shocked. people screaming and yelling when the sheets of the bed moved. my wife and i were just laughing throughout all of this. We were not only laughing at how stupid the movie was but that people in the audience were actually scared of any of this.

Maybe after seeing as much horror, gore and such, we are just de-sensitized to it now?

But I'm sorry, i cannot fathom how anyone was scaed at anypoint of this move.

I was MORE then let down...

Gromet

I couldn't agree more. I kind of wanted those 2 irritating losers to die the whole time.

Might go to the midnight showing tonight. I gotta convince the woman to stay up late, though.

I thought from the trailer that the premise was original and interesting and came asking about it when I first heard about it a while ago.

I posted a question about this movie when I first signed up to this site and was accused of viral marketing or being a spammer, I forgot which one.

But I find it strange that this movie was made in 2007 and it's just being released NOW in theatres. Is this viral marketing gone amok?

Still in all I think I'll go check it out just for the sake of curiosity.

I've seen this movie three times already. The first time I saw it I was disappointed probably because of the ridiculous hype it has received and I was expecting something else. Not to mention I was in the smallest theater and could not even movie. The sound system was pathetic and the audience screamed and laughed every second. This movie was not scary at all, at least in my opinion although it was extremely creepy and chilling. Most of the scenes are recycled but they give each scene a fresh feeling to it. There is comedy throughout and I love how they are able to spread comedy through the entire movie and still maintain a scare factor. If you don't give the audience something to laugh at they will find something to laugh at. After the second watch it grew on me big time and I now love the movie. It was over hyped in the sense of "scariest movie of all time" but it was a great movie.