Doesn't take a genius to figure out what's happened here. Bob or Harvey Weinstein, likely to have beengreen with envy, watched the numbers come in for Paranormal Activity ($106 million worldwide from a $15,000 budget!) and immediately scrambled through their vault, searching to find a property they owned that contained a mix of ghosts, poltergeists, cheap-audience thrills, etc. Now obviously, the sane-minded of us know that's not the reason why Paranormal Activity was such an ingenious and quite frankly, audacious moneymaker but The Weinstein's don't work on our level. They won't look at the sheer craftsmanship that went into that production but instead will just see COUPLE IN HAUNTED ROOM, and look to capitalise on that. Of course they didn't have to look far to find what they were looking for...
The Amityville Horror film series has been the subject of nine movies to date, none of them any good. But the story behind the whole Amityville Saga, is interesting to read up on.The Amityville Horror, a pretty nasty snooze-fest of a late 70s movie that The Weinsteins ALREADY remade four and a half years ago for a $100 million worldwide taking was what they stumbled on, and HEY PRESTO... they are thinking of remaking it once again. Amazingly, not a prequel or sequel but A REMAKE! Already!
If the movie goes ahead, which I can't imagine it will despite Bloody Digusting's belief a director could already be on board (feels like a Weinstein fad, and we've had a load of those down the years) then the eventual box office numbers will be interesting. They will beg the question; who is dumber... the casual horror fan who saw this in 2005 and are paying to see the exact same story once again (and explicitly so) or The Weinsteins for thinking that we are that dumb enough to do just that. Or have they got something different on their minds this time? The use of the handheld, real docu-style movie, possibly set around a crew who visit Amityville, a town now sick of the unwanted publicity this whole saga has brought upon them, and some bad stuff happens whilst filming? Because a brand new remake, so soon after the last one just seems dumb when a sequel to the 2005 movie would be so much easier and less patronising.
Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.
