Paramount has been sitting on a found-footage film for many years, that being Oren Peli’s Area 51 movie. The film was actually completed a while back but has been stuck in limbo for years. The film focuses on a group of young adults who attempt to catch footage when sneaking onto a military based which is rumored to be Area 51, and is thought as place when the government holds alien technology, along with experiment. Things of course start to get out of hand when they seemingly release something they shouldn’t have.
Oren directed Paranormal Activity and has been producing the a majority of the sequels, this movie was put together very quietly almost right after Paranormal’s release. Since then, he’s been hush-hush about it then the studio seemingly shelved it to focus on the horror flicks.
There had been some assumption that Chernobyl Dairies, which Oren also produced sort of made the film unnecessary since Area 51 has similar beats. It’s also possible the film wasn’t up to snuff for a theatrical release, it’s heading to VOD and digital platforms on May 15th. I think it might be a mix of both, but since there are aliens involved here it could turn out a bit more interesting. The biggest challenge is that it does look extremely dated, and low-budget which was the aim but might have turned Paramount off for theatrical release.
SOURCE: PARAMOUNT