Will Paranormal Activity 2 go down as writer Akiva Goldsman’s long-awaited moment of redemption, or his opportunity to sink a second financially-successful movie franchise?

OK, that’s being awfully hard on the man, given that his career also includes the scripts to A Beautiful Mind, the Tom Hanks vehicles The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, and writing/helming a number of television shows (including recently being in Vancouver to direct an episode of Fringe). But to some people, Goldsman will always be the screenwriter of Batman & Robin, which put the Dark Knight in a deep freeze that lasted nearly a decade.

Having crawled his way back from show biz purgatory, it now appears Goldsman is involved with Paranormal Activity 2, the sequel to Paramount’s low-budget horror hit. An earlier report from STYD claimed he had leap-frogged the likes of Greg McLean (Wolf Creek), Brad Anderson (The Machinist), and Brian De Palma for the director’s job. However, Collider subsequently reported that Goldsman has signed on to serve as executive producer but will not actually direct.

Being the writer that he is, though, Goldsman is expected to collaborate with Oren Peli (who wrote and directed Paranormal Activity), Jason Blum, and Steven Schneider on coming up with a storyline that matches the effectiveness of the original. Whatever his role is, he’ll have his hands full trying to match the success of the first film, which grossed over $183M on a budget of only $15,000.

Hopefully, Goldsman’s involvement this time will yield very different results from Batman & Robin, which underperformed at the box office. Of course, the actual director of Paranormal Activity 2 still has to be announced; expect news closer to the start of production in May.

Meanwhile, if you’re reading this, Mr. Goldsman, please, please, please do not hire Joel Schumacher to direct.