Blumhouse have built a reputation as one of the most successful production companies in the industry by churning out a series of low-budget horror movies that do consistently big business at the box office. The low-risk, high-reward model has paid huge dividends so far and brought in billions as a result, and one of the key pillars of this success has been the Insidious franchise.
Like virtually every other multi-film series in the genre, Insidious fell victim to the law of diminishing returns in terms of critical reception, but audiences didn’t seem to get tired of it, and after raking in almost $540 million globally against combined production costs of just $26.5 million, you would expect Blumhouse to keep pumping out sequels for the foreseeable future.
However, star Lin Shaye seems to have cast doubt on the possibility of a fifth chapter, or at least her involvement in it. The actress has played a major role in every Insidious movie so far, but admitted in a recent interview that her character Elise Rainier’s story might be over for good.
“No, I think she’s over. There was some idea, actually James at one point said he had an outline for number five which would have probably gone back to the original family, which I thought was a great idea. But Elise’s story is pretty much done. They told my story. I would be in The Further if it happened. I don’t think they’ll do another.”
Insidious was the brainchild of Saw co-creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell, but with both having moved onto much bigger things, it would likely take a lot of convincing for either of them to return to the well once again. Wan has original horror movie Malignant in the can and awaiting release before he dives straight into Aquaman 2, while following on from the success of The Invisible Man, Whannell will be remaining in the Universal Monsters sandbox having signed on to direct Ryan Gosling’s Wolfman.
Even if we don’t get another Insidious movie, Blumhouse have more than enough horror properties to keep them going with the Halloween, Paranormal Activity and Purge franchises all at their disposal along with their involvement in the resurgence of the Universal Monsters, so there will still be plenty of content to keep fans occupied for a while yet.