Anyone with even a passing interest in Hollywood horror can probably cite the broad outlines of Jason Blum’s career. Beginning with Paranormal Activity—a $15,000 indie horror flick that Blum’s fledgling production company Blumhouse spun into a $193 million blockbuster—the producer became famous for his sabermetrics-like approach to filmmaking, which minimized risk by prioritizing low budgets and offering low salaries upfront while promising a healthy cut of the back-end gross on any movie that became a hit. A string of smashes, including The Purge, Split, and Get Out followed; when a movie didn’t connect, the financial impact was relatively easy for Blumhouse to shrug off.
Though Blumhouse occasionally produced dramas, including critical darlings such as Whiplash and BlacKkKlansman, the studio soon became synonymous with what was widely heralded as a new golden age of horror movies. That’s the subject of a new book, Horror’s New Wave: 15 Years of Blumhouse, which candidly recounts the stories behind more than a dozen of Blumhouse’s biggest hits.
But while the book looks backward, Blum himself is just as eager to talk about the company’s next chapter, highlighting forays into immersive entertainment, video games, and even an upcoming museum space devoted to all things Blumhouse—in the shadow of Colorado’s Stanley Hotel, which inspired Stephen King’s The Shining. “We spent the first 15 years kind of establishing the brand,” says Blum. “Now, we have this brand. What are we going to do with it? You can’t be in a creative business and just have success and repeat it. It just doesn’t work like that. So: What is the cutting edge of horror today? And how do we remain a part of it?”
Below, Jason Blum weighs in on the difficulties of post-COVID Hollywood, the next generation of horror filmmakers, and the impact A.I. might have on the filmmaking process:
The book, understandably, mostly focuses on most of Blumhouse’s biggest hits from the past 15 years: Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Get Out. But as you look back on the full Blumhouse slate, are there any movies that didn’t connect that you wish audiences would give a second look?
There are two: Jem and the Holograms and The Hunt. The Hunt had a very bad break in its timing, basically. [Ed: The Hunt, a violent political satire, attracted the ire of both conservative commentators and Donald Trump, and Universal Picture delayed its release, citing the proximity of several real-life mass shootings. It finally premiered one week before the COVID-19 pandemic closed movie theaters nationwide.] The Hunt is an incredible movie, and it would have been a hit.
How have you seen movie audiences change post-COVID?
The kinds of movies that are working in theaters are very different than the ones before COVID. For better or worse, IP is more important. People feel like the thing that they’re seeing needs to be connected to a prior movie, or a book they know, or a TV show they know, or something that they already know. Originals struggle more. There are some originals that work, but they’re fewer and further between. And they have to be even more different and special than they were in the past.
This year, at least, we had two giant original horror hits: Sinners and Weapons. Does that give you any hope that horror, at least, might be less susceptible to the IP boom?
No. The exact opposite, because those are the only two original movies that worked. Sinners worked, and Weapons worked, but there were 15 others that did not work. To have a year where it looks like there are only going to be two original horror movies that broke out into the culture is a new thing. Usually there are five or six.
So what is working?
Well, Atomic Monster—which is our sister company—just had [The Conjuring: Last Rites], which is the most successful Conjuring movie of all time. So when movies do work, they work bigger. But when they bomb, they bomb bigger. It used to be like, Well, we’ll get to [$7 million], but now you’re going to have movies open to [$2 million].
How do you account for that change?
I think the windows have confused the consumer. You know, some things are on [streaming] in two weeks, some are three weeks, some are four months. Movie theaters have successfully competed with home viewing since the advent of television in the 1950s, but there was always a very clear delineation. Everyone was on the same page: The movie shows first in the movie theater, and months later, you can watch it at home. Now, every window is different. You know, Apple goes off day-and-date, or they don’t even do a theatrical. I think it’s created confusion in the marketplace.
The result is that the old idea—“We’re going to go to the movies this weekend, let’s just go to the theater and pick one”—it almost doesn’t exist. Now, when people go to the theater, they’re going to see a specific movie. Generally, it’s like [the audiences] says, “You know, that looks kind of cool. I’m sure it’ll be at home in a few weeks.” Unless it’s, “Oh, my God, I have to see that in a movie theater.” That’s what happened with Sinners. That’s what happened with Weapons. And that’s what happened with The Conjuring.
Your upcoming slate includes The Black Phone 2, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, and the M3GAN spinoff SOULM8TE. How do you find the balance between building on the successful franchises you have, and launching original movies that might generate new franchises?
We don’t have a hard and fast rule about it. I would say we’re a little more mirroring the market. The market is probably heavier: Probably 60 to 70 percent IP, 20 to 30 percent originals. I don’t put guardrails around it—we’re thinking of it film by film—but ours works out to a little bit over half as IP, and a little bit less than half as original.
Especially after Get Out, Blumhouse was credited with helping to spark a new wave of “elevated horror”—basically, horror movies that overcame genre stigmas to earn critical acclaim and serious awards consideration. Do you think that remains a major part of what’s happening in horror now?
I think Get Out’s biggest effect is it brought in all sorts of young directors and gave them the aspiration to do horror when they wouldn’t have had it before. You know, pre-Get Out, when you were the star film student at NYU, you were looking to make the Sundance winner that Fox Searchlight bought. I think post-Get Out, they’re often looking to make the next Get Out.
Have you actually seen that play out in the marketplace?
I mean, I haven’t had a movie cross over like Get Out. It’s hard. Get Out comes along once every 20 years. But I think there have been a lot of movies made by a lot of young people, that are very groundbreaking, that would not have happened if it weren’t for Get Out.
Because studios wouldn’t have been interested in them, or because the filmmakers themselves wouldn’t have made them?
Because the filmmakers would have made dramas about, whatever, their mother-in-law. The heavy movies… that was your way in, for a while.
Everyone wanted to make Good Will Hunting.
Yeah, everyone wanted to make Good Will Hunting. But [up-and-coming filmmakers] also want movies in theaters, and those movies aren’t really going to movie theaters anymore, with a few exceptions. There are very few movies that have newer casts, without movie stars, that are dramas, that are winding up in movie theaters. So if you want your movie in a movie theater — and because of Get Out—horror is cool.
I remember a lot of talk during the first Trump administration about how many great horror movies were going to spring from that era. Here we are in the second Trump administration. Do you have any thoughts about the kinds of horror movies that are going to spring from the times we’re living in now?
I think they’re springing. They don’t have to be about the administration, or politics. They don’t have to be The Purge. But if you talk to young people today—young horror directors—it’s very top of mind. What’s going on in the world is extremely terrifying, and they’re making their versions of movies about that.
What kinds of things are they saying to you?
No artist I’ve ever met talks that directly about it, but they’re edging around those feelings, for sure. I think an artist… they have these things that come exploding out of them, that they can’t control, and they’re channeled in different ways based on inputs. And the input is that they’ve always liked cool horror movies. So I think that the stories that are bursting out of them are often funneled through a horror lens, because that’s what they’re taking in.
What’s your take on A.I.? Do you see that become a major part of the Hollywood filmmaking process?
Well… I think whether you are pro-A.I. or against A.I., it’s here to stay, obviously. It’s going to affect all our lives. So we’re trying to embrace it as a filmmaking tool in every possible way. Obviously in a moral and ethical way. But I think to put your head in the sand and say, ‘We’re never using A.I. in our movies’ is insane—because other people are going to use A.I. in their movies, and their movies are going to be better because they’re using A.I. in their movies. So we’re embracing it in every way we can that is moral, ethical, and legal.
In what ways do you see it being helpful now?
With pre-visuals, and looking at things before you shoot them, and effects. All sorts of things. I think A.I. is going to be an incredible tool for filmmakers to tell their stories. I think we’re a long way away from A.I. actually replacing filmmakers.
Do you think that will ever happen?
I don’t know. If it does, I don’t think it’ll happen while I’m in the business.