FIGHT!

Lionsgate has emerged from the corner it crawled into at Halloween. It took a hell of a beating in the Saw vs. Paranormal Activity fight, stumbled away covered in its own blood and piss and has spent the last few months licking its wounds and recovering. Now it's back and it's angry, and it turns out that we're even less likely to like it now that they're angry.

The situation seems to be this: Lionsgate has decided to exercise a clause in the contract of Saw 6 director Kevin Greutert and insist that he direct Saw 7 aka Saw 3D aka Saw 7 3D aka You Probably Saw This Coming. He's unhappy because he had signed on to direct Paranormal Activity 2 for Paramount. Paramount is unhappy because this means it'll have to find a new director for Paranormal Activity 2, and this puts the release date for that film in jeopardy. Lionsgate is thrilled because it still gets to pedal more of their nonsense this Halloween and have sabotaged their strongest competition.

A bit more depth to how this affects all involved? Okay, then. Let's start with Kevin Greutert. Should we feel sorry for him? I'm not known as Matt the Merciful for no reason at all, so I did consider his plight. Then I read the message he posted on his website bemoaning that he'll have to wait to make a film he'd show his mother because "I'll be filming people getting tortured YET AGAIN." Very sad, although I've come to the conclusion that I don't feel sorry for him at all.

There are two reasons why. The first is that he's in no position to take a swipe at the content of the Saw films. He's been contributing to them since the first sequel, first as an editor and then as a director. If he finds repetitive films about torture so distasteful then perhaps it might have been a good idea to fuck off and stand up for principals five pissing years ago. To do so now just seems opportunistic and twatish. Or twat-like. Twatative? How would you adapt that word?

The second point to make is that he signed a contract with Lionsgate agreeing to all of this. He must have realised that there was a chance this would happen if he then signed on to make a film that would directly compete against them. Plus, it's not like he's been taken off a passion project. It's a rushed cash-in on a hit movie which he had no involvement in.

So, for him it's basically a case of ‘I'm being forced to make a bullshit sequel to the last bullshit sequel I made when really I want to make a different bullshit sequel entirely'. It's an epic tragedy.

For Lionsgate's part, it seems to be being incredibly childish. If it's confident in its film, it shouldn't need to sabotage the competition. Alternatively, other horror releases have had to shift their releases away from Halloween for years now so as not to go up against the Saw juggernaut. Maybe it's their turn.

Let's also not forget that Kevin Greutert's entry in the Saw series has been its least financially successful. You'd think it'd be pleased to be rid of him. Lionsgate should send him over to Paramount with a fucking bow on his head. In fact, when I first heard Kevin Greutert was attached to Paranormal Activity 2 I assumed Lionsgate had dropped him off in a basket on Paramount's doorstep with a note saying ‘Please take care of our director, we don't know what to do with him anymore.'

I can understand Lionsgate being so protective of Saw. It's not the biggest studio and the Saw series has been a lucrative one. The films are quick and cheap to produce (on account of how awful they are) and tend to bring in good money at the box office. Plus, every Saw film gets multiple DVD releases (a theatrical cut, an unrated cut, a director's cut, another cut, a first cut is the deepest cut, a hair-cut you regret, a cut me in on the action and a steaming hot cut of diarrhoea) and a new ‘complete series' boxset with everyone.

As a studio that specialise in hawking low-brow tat to hollow-headed spendthrifts, it shouldn't be expected to behave in anything less than a juvenile way when protecting its most prized possession. You just have to forgive them. They don't know any better. Plus, if we're kind to them, they might release another Crank film.

So how about Paramount? Well, its cash-in for this year might not happen. Honestly, hiring Kevin Greutert and rushing Paranormal Activity 2 into production does seem like a particularly poor idea. It's unlikely that, if it does decide to continue to work towards the current release date, it won't be able to find someone willing to take a paycheck to get the film cranked out in time. It will probably turn out to be unwatchable bollocks, though. It would be quite nice if Sony took the opportunity to have a bit of a sit down and a think about what it wants to do.

The first Paranormal Activity is a great film, but not one that necessarily lends itself well to follow-ons. I think it would be quite cool if they decided to approach a sequel in the way John Carpenter wanted to take the Halloween series. The idea was to maintain the Halloween theming, but tell different Halloween stories with different filmmakers every time. No returning Michael Myers, just a bunch of cool, fun Halloween movies. Hence Halloween 3: Season Of The Witch.

Why not try this with Paranormal Activity? Every year or two bring out a new ghost movie in the series of about the same tone, without bringing back the characters or the camcorder style or anything else. It'd be a good middle ground between producing original films and having a recognisable name on the marquee of the cinema.

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