"I believe we're at the dawn of the low-budget, wide release movie," said Jason Blum, who produces the "Paranormal Activity" franchise and also is a producer on "Sinister."
Hollywood's appetite for found-footage films shows few signs of abating. No sooner had "Devil" finished its strong weekend than Warner Bros. confirmed it had hired Bell to direct "The Vatican," a low-budget horror movie that it hopes will replicate "Devil." And Chris Aronson, senior vice president of distribution at Fox, acknowledged that "Chronicle" was "a departure" for the studio but said that "it was made for a very cost-effective number."
But whether audiences will soon tire of the filmmaking style remains to be seen. Moviegoers were turned off after they saw "Devil," giving the exorcism tale an execrable "F" on CinemaScore. And this past summer, found-footage film "Apollo 18," about the mythic aborted NASA mission, flopped, taking in fewer than $18 million domestically and suggesting that audiences might not always want to see pretend-reality on a movie screen.
"There will be a glut in the marketplace and a lot of movies that aren't good, because I think to a lot of people in Hollywood it can seem very attractive, a get-rich quick scheme," Schneider said. "But I'm hopeful that after it will level out. This isn't just a gimmick. It's a really good way to tell a story."
steve.zeitchik@latimes.com
amy.kaufman@latimes.com
