Exclusive Interview: The Devil Inside’s William Brent Bell and Matthew Peterman Talk Controversial Endings, Sequel Potential and Upcoming Projects
Steve Barton
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It pretty much goes without saying that The Devil Inside‘s co-writer/director William Brent Bell and co-writer/producer Matthew Peterman are having one hell of a week. After seeing their independently made film open to a staggering $33.7 million, the pair have witnessed some passionate debates heat up online surrounding it, and they’ve also been announced as attached to two other upcoming horror projects. Of course we have the scoop on it all!
Dread Central sat down to chat with Bell and Peterman yesterday to hear their thoughts on the opening weekend success of The Devil Inside as well as the controversial “non-ending” of the film and what they have in store for fans with their upcoming genre projects.
It had only been a week since we last spoke to Bell and Peterman at the Los Angeles premiere of The Devil Inside, and what a difference a week has made in the life of the filmmaking duo!
“This really has been a ridiculous roller coaster of a week,” said Bell. “It’s just hard to believe it all, really.” Peterman added, “I think it’s just incredible how our independent movie that we made for hardly any money has reached so many people and has gotten people talking passionately about the film – good or bad.”
Speaking of good and bad, both Bell and Peterman discussed that they are well aware of the online fervor the ending of The Devil Inside sparked last weekend. “Personally, I think the abrupt ending adds to the authenticity because these movies aren’t always a three-act structure kind of storytelling, and I think audiences aren’t used to that. We just wanted to make an ending they wouldn’t see coming so they could draw their own conclusions. I absolutely still stand by our ending.”
“We honestly did expect that people would react to the ending in the movie, but we just never imagined it would be anything like this. It’s incredible to see this kind of passion on both sides of the fence though,” added Peterman.
“Non-ending” aside, we asked the pair if they have any plans for a sequel to The Devil Inside or if they’ve heard anything from Paramount regarding a follow-up film yet.
“We’ve got a bunch of ideas on where we’d like to go from here for a Devil Inside sequel, but there has been no announcement yet,” explained Peterman. “I think we both know which direction the story should go from here, and we’d love to get the opportunity to do another one, definitely.”
However, a sequel for The Devil Inside may just have to wait for a while because both Bell and Peterman are going to be pretty busy for the unforeseeable future after the announcement of two feature film projects this week. Bell briefly discussed the next religious-themed horror film he’s going to be tackling: The Vatican.
Bell said, “The Vatican project was something Warner Bros. came to us about. David Cohen is writing it, and it’s their first foray into smaller-budgeted movies so it should be fun. It’s not going to be like this movie at all so don’t expect to see the same stuff again either.”
The other project announced this week involving Peterman and Bell was described as a found footage project involving a werewolf. We asked the duo if they could elaborate on any of the details at all.
“You know, we were originally going to work with producer Nick Meyers on The Devil Inside, but then things changed on that project,” explained Peterman. “We knew we still wanted to work with him, and then this project came up. Our plan is that we’re going to be heading to Romania and get the shoot done pretty quickly. It will be another faux-documentary style project, but it’s going to be very different than anything fans have seen before. And I think it’s going to be interesting to take a very well-known mythology like this and give it a realistic spin.”
Bell said, “We’ve been working on this project for ten months now, and it’s really incredible we finally get to make the announcement and that we’re moving forward.”
“To be honest, we did a movie a few years ago that we really didn’t like very much so it feels incredible to be back working in the genre. It definitely feels like we’re getting to fall in love with the genre all over again, too. We just want to be able to keep making horror films and offer up new twists for fans and think these new movies will do that,” added Bell.
Special thanks to William Brent Bell and Matthew Peterman for taking the time to chat with Dread Central this week!
For more visit the official The Devil Inside website, “like” The Devil Inside on Facebook, and follow The Devil Inside on Twitter.
Also don’t forget to check out the newly launched website, The Rossi Files, which is home to all types of viral goodies like never-before-seen footage, archival notes, and more.
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