- Source of Wealth: Film
- Age: 50
- Birth Place: Ramat Gan, Israel
- Full Name: Oren Peli
- Nationality: Israeli-American
- Date of Birth: January 21, 1970
- Ethnicity: Israeli
- Occupation: Film Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Oren Peli is an Israeli-born American film director and screenwriter who has an estimated net worth of $30 million. He is best known as the creator/director of the 2007 film Paranormal Activity.
Peli moved to the United States from Israel when he was 19. An intensive student of animation and graphic design, he worked on video games to pay the bills, but really wanted to direct and edit feature films. He used to work as a computer programmer and he was one of the developers behind Photon Paint, a bitmap graphics program for the Amiga.
Peli’s dream to become part of the film industry happened in 2009. He took some inspiration from The Blair Witch Project and made his own first-person-style horror movie Paranormal Activity. When he moved to his first house alone and without family nearby, he would hear creaks and knocks in the night. These instances laid the groundwork for a film about a family running around with cameras trying to catch what was going on in the house.
The budget was only about $15,000, but Peli used his skills as a filmmaker and editor to create terrifying suspense, so much so that audiences who caught the movie during its initial, limited release, created a massive buzz, full of stories about theaters full of screaming patrons.
Because the film became a success, Peli worked with James Wan and Leigh Whannell to develop Insidious. He also produced and wrote the 2012 horror film, Chernobyl Diaries, which was based on the Chernobyl disaster and on his story The Diary of Lawson Oxford.