It was, it was fun because I felt like we were able to kind of open up a bigger box, you know. Was it rewarding to open the story up a bit? It definitely feels bigger in terms of scope. I just kind of jumped on it and I think with everybody involved there was just a really renewed kind of enthusiasm when we approached this movie. So for me it was less of a challenge and more of it just being really exciting and fun for me. You know, it wasn’t, I think because I’ve been making these for the last few years now, I was on 2, 3 and 4, I was just gung-ho and ready to do something different. Was it intimidating as a director to be the one behind this change in setting? So it was really, really important to us to have a really clean narrative that advanced the mythology this time. Because that was something that I think we do in this franchise. We really learnt from that and that was one of the big goals when we all sat down and talked about this movie, how we really wanted to get the mythology back on track and to answer some questions and then raise some new ones.
What was behind the decision to take a new approach?Īfter we made Paranormal Activity 4, that movie was, in hindsight, a big disappointment to our core fans because we really just didn’t advance the mythology at all and we kind of dropped everybody into a big weird pit at the end of the movie. You know it’s definitely the most fulfilling and thrilling aspect of getting the movie out there is seeing…I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t been obsessively stalking Twitter! And it’s been so much fun to see so many people just loving the movie and praising it and really feeling like we took a fresh approach to the franchise because when you’re five movies deep into a franchise you can get into a stale place. So have you enjoyed seeing the positive fan reaction to the film? We spoke to Landon about the positive fan reaction to The Marked Ones, why a new start was needed, and why the microbudget franchise continues to be so popular. Writer/director Christopher Landon (writer of the last three Paranormal Activity films) wanted to approach the series’ mythology from a new angle, setting the story in a Latino community in California as young (Jesse) begins to realise he has been chosen for something sinister… With Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, the found-footage franchise starts a new chapter.