Paranormal Activity Alternate Endings, Expansion

Back slappings are in order for the small team of marketers pushing Paramount’s Paranormal Activity.  When actual weekend totals were revealed Monday, the micro-budgeted horror flick had scored $7.9 million from Friday to Sunday and an impressive jump to fourth in the fall competition.

The roughly $11,000 budget movie has made over $10 million in 160 locations after expanding its hours last weekend from only midnight screenings in prior engagements.  Now, by popular demand with over a million “Demand It” requests on Eventful.com, the Oren Peli film is widening to 800 theaters this Friday, October 16 before spreading to over 2,000 locations the following weekend, October 23.

For those of you who’ve seen it, you know it’s a suspenseful “found footage” chiller.  However, you may not know that since playing the festival circuit in early 2008, Paranormal Activity has seen a few edits and ending changes.

SPOILER WARNING!  PLOT DETAILS BEYOND THIS POINT:

The current cut concludes with Katie rising from the bed again, standing over Micah, and then slowly walking out of the bedroom.  Micah awakens and darts down the stairs.  A struggle ensues to the sounds of screaming.  Then Micah’s body is hurled at the camera (unfortunately shown in the trailer) and Katie re-enters covered in blood.  She kneels over his slumped form, sniffs him, delivers a wicked smile, and lunges at the lens.  This finish was suggested by Steven Spielberg.

In the original cut, Micah runs downstairs and is never seen again.  Katie emerges covered in blood and wielding a knife.  She curls up in the fetal position on the floor by the bed and proceeds to rock back and forth while the timestamp cycles.  Her friend calls and leaves a worried voicemail message on the answering machine, then stops by and screams (presumably after finding Micah).  The cops show up and a policeman makes his way upstairs.  Katie snaps out of her comatose state and in her confusion she advances with the knife, prompting the panicked police to fire on her.

Peli even shot a third ending where Katie returns knife in hand and in her possessed state slits her throat in front of the camera.  Pretty gruesome stuff for a movie that barely includes blood before that moment.

These endings may end up on the DVD along with other deleted scenes. Peli said they shot over 70 hours of footage, so when the disc hits shelves there will probably be a packed version with lots of extras.

Sources: Horror Squad, MTV, THR