In the battle of the horror giants, Jigsaw has blinked: Lionsgate Thursday pushed back the release date of "Saw 3D" from Oct. 22 to Oct. 29.

The move avoids a looming standoff on Oct. 22, when Paramount was scheduled to open "Paranormal Activity 2" against the seventh entry in the annual "Saw" series.

All of the "Saw" movies since 2004's original have opened on the weekend before Halloween and Lionsgate had the same plan for this year's installment. However, in January Paramount made clear its intentions of supplanting "Saw" with its fresh horror series by dating "Paranormal Activity 2," a follow-up to last year surprise low-budget hit, on the same date, Oct. 22.

The date added insult to injury after Paramount attempted to recruit Keven Greutert, the director of "Saw VI," to helm "Paranormal Activity 2." However, production company Twisted Pictures ended up exercising its contractual option to have Greutert work on "Saw 3D" instead and Paramount ended up hiring indie director Tod Williams. [Updated: A previous version of this post stated that Lionsgate exercised the contractual option. It was Twisted Pictures.]

Last October, "Saw VI" opened on the same weekend that "Paranormal Activity" played in a nationwide release for the first time and grossed a disappointing $14.1 million, compared to $21.1 million for "Paranormal." Executives at Lionsgate apparently decided they would rather concede the Oct. 22 date than repeat the same experience.

In an interview Thursday with USA Today, "Saw" producer Oren Koules said "Saw 3D" be the last entry in the series, which has grossed more than $370 million since 2004. The first five entries were all successes, but last year's "Saw VI" was a surprise disappointment.

-- Ben Fritz

Photo: Joris Jarsky in "Saw V." Credit: Steve Wilkie / Lionsgate.

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Paramount did a brilliant job with its "You Demanded It" campaign on "Paranormal Activity," creating demand as much as exposing it. The trailer for the sequel -- which is being directed by the young Kip Williams and is still set for release this Halloween -- brings us back to where we left off: namely, with Paramount reminding us that we demanded it.

There's a hint of some new information in the minute-plus clip -- which, in a bid to ensure that women keep coming, plays ahead of "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" this weekend. The marketing material shows a baby crib, suggesting that possessed protagonist Katie is now a mother (though who she's with remains a mystery; boyfriend Micah is presumably dead after the first film). And it shows a dog barking. So there's that.

But it's mostly a reminder that there was a film about eight months ago, and that this will be set in a similar locale of a possessed home, shot with a similarly grainy feel. Apart from that, we'll have to wait for more trailers. Or, um, demand them.

-- Steven Zeitchik

http://twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

RECENT AND RELATED:

The haunted history of 'Paranormal Activity'

Possible directors on 'Paranormal Activity 2'

Dimension looks to engage in its own 'Paranormal Activity'

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EXCLUSIVE: As negotiations between The Weinstein Co. and Disney continue to wear on over the Miramax slate and library, the New York-based film company is forging ahead with the business of developing and making movies.

Dimension Films, the genre label run by Bob Weinstein, is making a deal to develop "The Mummy Archives," described as a more artful and modestly budgeted version of "The Mummy," the insanely lucrative Brendan Fraser franchise.

The film will focus on several young people who are haunted by a mummy curse, with the action playing out very much in the unseen realm, as both the audience and the characters frequently experience the effects of the curse without seeing it explicitly.

The project comes with some appealing names: Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego, a young Spanish genre director who attracted quite a bit of heat a couple years back for his Spanish-language thriller "The King of the Hill" ("El Rey de la Montana," which the Weinstein Co. released in the U.S.), is in final negotiations to write the screenplay and direct the film. Douglas Wick, the veteran producer behind mega-hits such as "Gladiator," generated the idea and is in final negotiations to produce the film through his Red Wagon Entertainment banner.

In its 11 years of existence, Universal's "Mummy" franchise has generated more than $1.2 billion in global box office across three films. But those movies are CG-dependent and pricey to make, and in the wake of "Paranormal Activity," studios are looking for the big breakout that doesn't cost big money (including companies like Dimension that have always been budget-conscious). The budget for "Mummy Archives" is expected to be in the $5-million range, a number that allows for some lean and mean storytelling but isn't high enough to spook anyone.

--Steven Zeitchik

(Follow me on Twitter.)

Photo: El Rey de la Montana. Credit: The Weinstein Company

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When it comes to "Paranormal Activity," nothing should surprise us anymore. This was a movie that was shot for $10,000 and became a $100-million-plus box-office powerhouse. And it did all that with no stars and no brand pedigree -- just a brilliant "America demanded it" marketing campaign.

So the fact that a number of emerging genre directors are being considered to direct the second picture in the haunted-house franchise (tentatively titled "Paranormal Activity 2" but probably soon to be renamed)  makes perfect sense.

More eerie, though, is that the studio is now seriously considering a trio of more experienced directors. And one of them is a person who'll really get your weird-o-meter spinning: Brian De Palma.

Yes, that Brian De Palma.

The iconic auteur behind "Scarface" and "Dressed to Kill" -- as well as more mainstream films like "The Untouchables"' and "Mission: Impossible" -- would be a strange choice to say the least. No doubt he'll bring art-house credibility and visual flair. But De Palma is known for shoots that don't always go for the lowest common denominator at the multiplex, that aren't always cheap (though his last movie, the Iraq film "Redacted," was a lower-budgeted affair) and a shooting schedule that doesn't scream quick turnaround.

(And if you think De Palma would be a bizarre choice, consider this: At one point, Akiva Goldsman, a quintessential Hollywood insider, was also in the mix to direct the film. Goldsman is the Oscar-winning writer "A Beautiful Mind." He's also the writer and/or producer on a host of big-budget studio movies, including "The Da Vinci Code" and "I Am Legend." He won't direct the film in the end, but the fact that Paramount and the movie's producers were considering him suggests they want to give the film a different kind of gloss than the no-budget, unknown-driven first picture.)

Of course there's a logic to that sort of thinking: Oren Peli's original "Paranormal," which had few auterish touches, could, in the wrong hands, yield a low-end sequel (think "Blair Witch 2: Book of Secrets"). If nothing else, De Palma would elevate the level of filmmaking from what a less experienced director might do.

As for the young genre directors, they include a more Peli-ish group of freshmen and sophomores: Brad Anderson (director of a Woody Harrelson-Emily Mortimer thriller a few years back called "Transsiberian") and Greg McLean (a writer and director on an Australian horror movie called "Wolf Creek" -- another low-budget title that made a nice multiple, $16 million in U.S. box office).

All this is happening because "Saw VI" director Kevin Greutert won't direct the new "Paranormal." The horror filmmaker had been all set to sit in that tall chair until Lionsgate decided to exercise its option on him for the next "Saw" film (a direct competitor at the box office with "Paranormal"), pulling him off "Paranormal 2."

Whatever producers and Paramount executives decide to do, they'll probably want to do it quickly. The movie doesn't yet have a director or actors (they'd need at least one new one, given how the first ended), and, last we heard, the script was still being worked on. But it does have a release date -- exactly eight months from now, on Oct. 22, just before Halloween. This is where a little supernatural magic might come in handy.

--Steven Zeitchik

Photo: Paranormal Activity. Credit: Paramount Pictures