“I really wanted Jesse to believe that something special was happening to him - that it was something he would be excited about,” Landon said, “before that blessing turned into a curse.”Īlthough the main players generally speak English (Hector doesn’t speak any Spanish), the filmmakers wrestled with how much Spanish dialogue to include. Pretty soon, as his friend Hector (Jorge Diaz) documents on video, Jesse is exhibiting strange and disturbing powers, including the ability to levitate himself and others. While the “Paranormal Activity” movies tend to be about things (or people) that go bump in the night, the narrative design of “The Marked Ones” slowly evolved from a witch story into a possession plot, in which a recent high school graduate named Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) wakes to find odd bite marks on his arm. (One of the first botanicas he toured is in the film.) Landon said that in his initial research for the movie’s script, he visited Los Angeles botanicas, stores that sell alternative medicines such as herbs and spiritual amulets and candles, and was struck by the diversity of the remedies, clientele and religions represented. PHOTOS: A brief history of found footage films Added Landon: “We didn’t want to make a shameless cash grab.”īecause “Paranormal Activity 4” was so disappointing, the creative team felt it had license to try different things, primarily by taking “The Marked Ones” out of a confined dwelling, as had largely been the decree before. “The audience is sophisticated and can see through something that’s inauthentic,” said Blum, who has produced all of the “Paranormal Activity” films, which have a total worldwide gross of $720.7 million. So the studio, writer-director Christopher Landon (who has writing credits on the last three “Paranormal Activity” films) and producer Jason Blum set out to create a film that would be designed to appeal to Latino moviegoers, with the caveat that it not pander to them. “She was referring to the film as if real,” Goodman recalled. Seated at a focus group after the test screening, the teen eloquently expressed some complaints about the production, but it was her resolute ownership of the story and its characters - rather than her critical insights - that made Goodman sit up. The moviegoer in question was a 15-year-old Latina who attended a Los Angeles research preview of “Paranormal Activity 3” in 2011. Paramount estimates that Latino ticket buyers accounted for about 11% of the domestic gross of the first “Paranormal Activity” film in 2009, rising to an estimated 19% for the last sequel (Latinos make up 16.9% of the U.S. Generally speaking, Latino moviegoers long have been supporters of horror movies, especially those with a supernatural twist. REVIEW: ‘Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones’ has fresh frights The inspiration for “The Marked Ones” comes from both data and a single moviegoer. “And quality control is a really hard thing to keep up.” “Trying to keep interest in anything for this long is a real challenge,” said Adam Goodman, president of Paramount Film Group.
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