Over the weekend, derivative, found-footage horror film The Devil Inside boldly proved to all the Oscar films it was competing against that reading is for fa99ots, and earned $34.5 million, good enough for the third-best January opening ever (behind Cloverfield and the Star Wars re-release), all on a $1 million budget. I didn’t see it because the trailer looked like a mash-up of horror movie tropes, and the found-footage conceit for movies is getting as old as the we’re-making-a-fake-documentary schtick is on TV, but all weekend I’ve been getting emails about the film’s ending, or lackthereof. It’s apparently rather abrupt, and points the audience to a website. Here’s what the filmmakers had to say about it:

Matthew Peterman [director]: We had a couple of endings that we were working on. Paramount did a really cool thing with that website (TheRossiFiles.com), to drive people to the website after the movie. We think it’s pretty cool, and that’s never really been done before, with the interactivity of that. Whether it works or not, we’ll see. Some people like it, and some people don’t, but as for the ending, and the abrupt nature of it, we played around with some stuff. But sometimes, in real life, and we tried to make this movie feel as real as possible, it doesn’t follow a three-act structure like movies do. Things don’t always end the way you expect them too, or they don’t end at the right time, or happily, either. We just tried to make a pretty realistic ending. What’s going on at the end of this film is very shocking, it’s intense, and there’s some evil going on, and it’s not always going to happen the way you expect it to. We just wanted to make it as realistic as possible. [MovieWeb]

Or, as FilmDrunkard Matthew describes it (which I guess is kind of a spoiler, even though it doesn’t get into plot details):

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Paramount has announced that Paranormal Activity 4 is being produced and that it will be ready by Halloween weekend. The move isn’t that surprising when you consider the great steaming f*ckloads of money they’ve already made on the franchise. I honestly didn’t even know a third Paranormal Activity existed, and it set an opening weekend record for best October debut and best opening weekend for a horror film with $54 million, before going on to earn $202.2 million worldwide. Oren Peli directed the first one on a $15,000 budget ($194.4 million worldwide gross), then stepped into the producer’s chair for the next two, which were directed by Tod Williams and the team of Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman, respectively. No word yet on who’ll direct the fourth, but rest assured it probably won’t matter much.

Anyway, great for them. I’ll probably continue not seeing these. I just don’t really get the appeal. A curtain blows open, and a lady looks outside, and she’s like, “OH MY GOD, IT’S NOT EVEN WINDY! THIS HOUSE MUST BE HAUNTED!” It seems more like the raw material for a phone message from my mom than a movie franchise. But it’s cool that you guys like it. You know, whatever makes you happy.

I don’t know what to make of this Variety article, because it says “nothing is set in stone,” and some of the facty statements are prefaced by awesomely unattributable phrases like “it’s said,” but it seems to suggest that Paramount might shoot Transformers 4 and 5 back-to-back. No matter who said it, the fact that anyone might want to do that seems newsworthy in itself. Try to figure this out with me.

Hasbro chief Brian Goldner said during a Monday third-quarter earnings call that the toymaker is in “active discussions” with Paramount, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg on how to move forward. Sources close to the planning process tell Variety two films could be headed into production.

Yes, an exec at a toy company is active in pre-production discussions for a film. Sad as that is, it’s even sadder that none of us are surprised.

Paramount is considering lensing its fourth and fifth films without pause. Nothing is set in stone, but screenwriter Ehren Kruger is said to have an idea for the next installments that the studio is high on, and has only begun engaging with writers.

And he wrote the second and third ones, so I’m sure this will be just as great.

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"Oh hey, girl. ...Me? Oh, just talkin' bout Noah. Afterwards, gonna grab some vanilla lattes and probably hit up yoges. Toodles!"

Today, Paramount and New Regency put out a press release saying they were partnering for Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, with screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator) coming on to re-write the script by Aronofsky and Ari Handel. The release doesn’t say anything about budget, but back in June, Deadline reported that Paramount was looking for a partner on the project, describing it as a “sprawling fantasy epic that will cost north of $100 million.” Presumably it still is, and New Regency is the partner. Keep in mind, Black Swan cost about $12 million, and Aronofsky biggest budget thus far was $35 million for The Fountain.

Aronofsky has been talking about the Noah project for years, which supposedly all started with a poetry contest he won at age 13 for a poem about the end of the world as seen through the eyes of Noah (he probably got as much pussy as me at that age). Anyway, SlashFilm pulled a few quotes from older interviews where Aronofsky discussed the idea:

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Paramount has made a third installment of its Paranormal Activity franchise, and I can only imagine executives making space for more giant bags of cash because people love these cheap thrill movies. I guess as we bid farewell to the Saw torture porn franchise and the elementary plots of the Final Destination films, the throne was open for the taking. And we can’t really knock Paramount for making another, since the first installment was made for just $15,000 and raked in more than $193 million worldwide. Hell, Paranormal Activity 2 cost $3 million to make and grossed $176 million, so they must have at least 5 more of these green lit.

But how many movies can they make before the family members finally say, “Screw it” and give up the damn kid? It’s bad enough that in the first film they stayed in the house as long as they did. I know it’s an old joke, but the second that door slightly moves on the third day of the first film, I’m moving. I’m three states away by the end of the first week. And if the demon keeps following us because he wants the kid? Fine, take it, we’ll make another one. End of film.

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