With the found footage franchise machine humming along happily for him, **Paranormal Activity **producer Jason Bloom is looking for other ways to bring strange events to the screen. And he may just have struck a rich vein of source material, entering a deal to buy the rights to Fate magazine.
Fate, which sounds much like a cross between the Fortean Times (whose founder is the subject of a film already in development) and the more lurid excesses of Bizarre, was first published in 1948. Quickly finding an enthusiastic audience, it blended first-person stories of the macabre with investigations and even some sceptical inquiries into various happenings.
Blum is working with Picture Shack Entertainment duo George Plamondon and Betsy Schechter – who are experienced in all things spooky given that they oversee unscripted US TV series Paranormal State – to turn articles from the mag into possible movies and goggle box shows. "Whether you believe or not, if you watch someone who believes, it's fascinating," Plamondon says in a statement picked up by the Hollywood Reporter.
Right now, there are no solid plans in place, but there’s definitely scope for a new, Twilight Zone-style anthology series and, if Blum has anything to do with it, another horror franchise…