Last week it was reported that "Saw VI" director, Kevin Greutert, had switched horror franchises and was being brought on board to direct "Paranormal Activity 2," the sequel to Oren Peli’s creepy and ultra-successful low budget horror flick from last year. However, just a week after that news comes an update from Deadline Hollywood says that Greutert is no longer directing "Paranormal Activity 2" but has jumped back over to the "Saw" franchise to direct "Saw VII" in 3D.
Greutert had an option in his contract that would allow the studios to call him back to helm another "Saw" film. So when Lionsgate saw that he was set to direct Paramount's "Paranormal Activity 2" with a release date of October 22, 2010, they decided to block their competitor by installing Greutert as the director of "Saw VII" with the same scheduled release date.
David Hackl, who directed "Saw V" and was set to helm "Saw VII," has been taken off the project and will be quickly assigned another film. This move leaves "Paranormal Activity 2" without a director for the time being, although I don’t imagine Paramount will waste much time since its October 22 release date still stands.
This is the first major punch to be thrown in the battle for Halloween 2010 at the movies: both films are set for release on the same day and since the first "Paranormal Activity" beat out the last "Saw VI" when they went head-to-head last year, I’m assuming there was some brainstorming going on at Lionsgate about how they could take down Paramount's ghost story sequel. Evidently they came up with the idea of stealing back the director…
The battle is on between two potentially successful properties for the Halloween horror film season this year. It’ll be interesting to see what Paramount does to hit back in retaliation.
No matter what, I still don’t think the director is what will make either "Paranormal Activity 2" or "Saw VII" successful. "Saw VI" made less than half what the fifth one did worldwide, so that might be a sign that people are tiring of the franchise. And will a sequel to "Paranormal Activity" be able to replicate the success of the first? Somehow I don’t think so, simply because it was all about the mysterious nature of the first and audiences hadn’t really seen anything like it for a long time.
What are your thoughts on the battle between "Saw" and "Paranormal Activity" for Halloween 2010?
More news to come! Catch ya' later!
Source: Screen Rant, Latino Review
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