Did you see Paranormal Activity? Did you like it? If you answered yes to the second question, you mostly have writer-director Oren Peli to thank. But if you didn’t like it, you can thank Paramount for at least getting you in the movie theater. And the studio’s shareholders have Paramount’s marketing department to thank for the humongous profits the movie has been making — from people buying tickets, not from people liking what they paid for.

Obviously it’s more important to make money than a good movie, which may explain why Peli is reportedly having trouble securing distribution (and his asking price) for his follow-up, a sci-fi horror flick titled Area 51, despite the fact that his film just topped the weekend box office, has earned more than $60 million over five weeks of limited release and has been a Twitter trending topic consistently for about a month now. Neither of those things is at all thanks to him, right?

Maybe it isn’t helping him that his film looks like it was a piece of cake to make, and he kind of makes it seem that it was in fact easy peasy. But this was no Blair Witch Project, which was good in concept but not so much in execution. Paranormal Activity is structured terrifically and there’s nary a dull moment, even during the non-scary daytime scenes, which deserve a lot of credit for providing some very natural humor to balance with the sometimes silly paranormal thrills. Peli may not be a master filmmaker, but he did a pretty good job.

But whatever. Since when does Hollywood care if a filmmaker is actually great at making films, anyway? Didn’t I just hear that Steve Carr landed another gig? Did Paul Blart: Mall Cop make so much money because of his talent or because of Sony’s ability to sell stupid comedies to the masses?

Who wants to set up an Eventful “Demand It!” campaign for Area 51?

Check out what other film blogs are saying about Oren Peli’s troubles after the jump:

• First, Hollywood’s apprehensive and defensive take, from the original article by Michael Cieply at The New York Times:
  

  One problem is that studios will not be able to push the new movie as a sleeper hit, the way Paramount did with “Paranormal Activity,” whose Web campaign required audiences to “demand” the film before it would be shown in theaters.

  “In a world of grass-roots wildfires, Hollywood realized that this would not have the same force without the underlying buzz — the confusion between reality and drama — that the rough original film clearly delivered,” said Peter Dekom, a longtime entertainment lawyer and co-author of “Not on My Watch: Hollywood vs. the Future.”

• Seth Abramovitch at Movieline acknowledges the true nature of Hollywood:
  

  So far, Paramount, Lionsgate, Overture and at least three other studios have passed. Foreign rights, meanwhile, will be put up for sale at the American Film Market in Santa Monica next week — a harder sell if no one is ready to pony up for U.S. rights. Does this all have to end like The Blair Witch Project? We’d prefer to think that in Hollywood, talent prevails. But as we well know — chaos reigns.

• Lane Brown at Vulture wonders how this sort of thing influences future filmmakers:
  

  Cieply also notes the problems Daniel Myrick and Nia Vardalos had following up The Blair Witch Project and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. We’re sure Peli will pawn Area 51 off on some studio soon, but we hope not before his story serves as a lesson to young filmmakers out there foolishly considering making a wildly successful movie on a shoestring budget during a time of recession.

• Katey Rich at Cinema Blend stands up for Peli’s talent and worthiness:
  

  I’m convinced that Peli’s next film will be good, or at least worth watching, because of the filmmaking skill on display in Paranormal Activity. Unlike The Blair Witch Project, which had shaky cams going willy nilly and only a basic mythology keeping the story going, Paranormal Activity succeeds because of meticulous filmmaking, use of tension and cleverly executed special effects. It doesn’t scare you by disorienting you or convincing you that something is about to jump out from behind the corner; Peli structures the film so that tension builds with each scene, and even though you know he doesn’t have the budget for real special effects, you’re still convinced you might see something awful.

• Sean P. Means at Movie Cricket actually sees the positive in Cieply’s article, focusing on the fact there is in fact a bidding war:
  

  Why does “Area 51″ have bidders swarming like UFOs around an unsuspecting redneck? Because its writer-director, Oren Peli (pictured), made “Paranormal Activity,” the little thriller made on a shoestring budget ($15,000 initially) and has made $62.5 million so far at the box office.

• Mike Sampson at JoBlo.com offers an alternative to Demanding Peli’s next film:
  

  If you’re interested in alien thrillers, you could always just go see THE FOURTH KIND…