Jason Blum hosts a special Broadway performance of Paranormal Activity Aug. 26 at the August Wilson Theatre. Tickets and details inside.
The scariest thing about Paranormal Activity was never the ghost. It was the wait — static security-cam footage, a door creaking three inches, nothing happening until suddenly everything did. That patience-as-terror formula built a franchise that grossed close to $200 million off a single bedroom set.
Now the team that turned a hotel into a haunted house for Sleep No More is trying to build that same dread live, eight times a week, with no cut to black to hide behind.
On Wednesday, August 26, Jason Blum — the producer who financed the original film for a reported shoestring budget and never stopped making horror pay — will host a special performance of the Broadway production at the August Wilson Theatre.
A Franchise Built on Almost Nothing, Now Staged With Everything
The original Paranormal Activity worked because it withheld. A stationary camera, an empty hallway, the audience doing the director’s job for him. Adapting that to a stage is a structural problem, not just a creative one — you can’t cut away, and the audience can see the whole room.
The production’s answer is a design team assembled from some of the most technically ambitious immersive and illusion-driven work in recent theater:
Felix Barrett, who directed Sleep No More, is staging it; Chris Fisher, a Tony winner for illusions on Stranger Things: The First Shadow, is handling how the impossible happens on stage; and Gareth Fry, who won a Tony for sound design on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is building the sonic half of the scare.
A found-footage horror franchise getting a Tony-winning illusions designer is either the most honest evolution imaginable or proof that nothing stays low-budget once it works.
The Long Road to 52nd Street
This isn’t a play that arrived in New York looking for its first audience. It premiered at Leeds Playhouse in the UK before transferring to the West End’s Ambassadors Theatre, where it picked up an Olivier Award nomination for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play this year. From there it played sold-out runs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington D.C., and American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, plus a stop in Toronto, before a pre-Broadway engagement in Boston.
By the time it opened previews at the August Wilson Theatre on August 14, the production had already been stress-tested in five markets and one West End transfer. That’s not typical for a horror IP adaptation, and it’s the kind of runway that usually means the producers found something that actually works rather than something that just sold tickets on name recognition alone.
Why the Blum Name Still Means Something
Blumhouse’s involvement isn’t decorative. Blum produced the original 2009 film alongside Oren Peli and Solana Films, and the studio’s model — low-cost horror with high creative control — is arguably the reason this franchise had room to become something adaptable in the first place.
James and Lou, the play’s central couple, relocate from Chicago to London to outrun their past, which reframes the franchise’s core premise: the haunting was never about the house. It was about what people carry into it.
Every haunted-house story eventually admits the house was never the problem. This one just says it out loud in the marketing copy.
Mini FAQ
Is this a remake of the movie or a new story?
It’s a new story inspired by the film franchise, written by Levi Holloway, rather than a stage adaptation of any single Paranormal Activity film’s plot.
Who is starring in the Broadway production?
Cher Álvarez, Travis A. Knight, Shannon Cochran, and Eva Kaminsky lead the cast, all making their Broadway debuts in roles they’re reprising from earlier productions of the play.
Where can I get tickets to the Jason Blum-hosted performance?
Tickets for the August 26 performance are available at paranormalbroadway.com and at the August Wilson Theatre box office.
Conclusion and CTA:
Broadway has no shortage of IP adaptations chasing a built-in audience. What separates this one is the sequencing — five pre-Broadway markets and a West End nomination before a single New York preview. If you’re going to see one show this month that’s betting a horror franchise can survive without a camera cut, August 26 is the night to see it with the guy who financed the original.
