Our company, it's, uh, really un-sexy. And I think most people get into Hollywood to be showy. We first of all make horror movies, which people turn their noses up at. Second of all, we make cheap movies, and Hollywood's a lot about ego and money and, 'My movie cost $200m!,' you know?
Jason Blum
I don't believe in ghosts or paranormal activity, but one time I think I saw - I might have seen - no, I think I did see a ghost.
With most other genres, you need movie stars. With horror, you just need a story.
In every art form, nothing exists in a bubble. It exists because of what came before it. A lot of bricks were laid. I think if it weren't for 'The Purge,' 'Get Out' wouldn't resonate as a mainstream movie. You push on the taste of the audience, in a way, get them used to something, and then you keep pushing on it.
I try not to put pressure on filmmakers to come up with a big scare at the beginning. I think that helps let the audience settle in and get to know the people they're about to spend 90 minutes with. Once the scarier stuff happens, it's scarier because of that.
Success stems from the producer creating the optimal conditions for the filmmaker's own creative process. Not from steering the filmmaker through a one-size-fits-all approach.
I think because Skype is becoming so much more prevalent, and you're looking at someone else on a screen, it's going to work its way into movies and TV shows in all different ways, which I think is really cool.
We're offered bigger, larger budget movies to produce a lot, and we don't do them. That's not to say there aren't exceptions: there are a few exceptions, but I try and stick by the rules that produce what I think is the highest quality, most innovative work and try and let the rules go that make us feel like we're retreading.
The thing I'm most proud of about - not all of our movies, but a lot of our movies - is that you might love 'em, you might hate 'em, but most of the time, they're trying to be different or trying new things, which I think is really important.
'Paranormal Activity' was the first of our independently made/studio-released films. It was also the ultimate low-budget high-concept movie, which is what we are always looking for. 'Paranormal Activity' was the genesis of our model, of which I am so proud.
The most effective tool I have to work with artists I admire is to point to other artists that I admire and show that I've worked with them many, many times. It's not because I have option deals; it's because they want to keep working with us.
Rotten Tomatoes is the best thing that happened to the movie business because it means you have to make good movies.
We don't decide how a movie will be distributed until it's finished. It might be on iTunes, it might be on 3,000 theaters, but we make that decision after the fact.
When I was working for Miramax, before Sundance, a videotape of 'The Blair Witch Project' - of the full, completed movie - went to a lot of the buyers. And so we all saw it before the festival, and I passed, a bunch of people passed... Then I watched the movie marching toward success, and was reminded by my bosses what a dope I was.
I love scary movies and respect the filmmakers of scary movies, and it's just as hard to make a great scary movie as it is to make a great comedy or drama or anything else.
'The Purge' is really about America's crazy relationship to guns and guns gone wild, essentially, and it kind of laid the groundwork for 'Get Out.'
If you are still thinking about a script after five or ten years, that's a sign that it's good - not that it's stale. And the opposite is true - if everyone wants to make your movie, that's a sign that it probably sucks.
I'm attracted to things that make a point or have a certain point of view, but it's not a conscious thing that I decide to do every morning. Unconsciously, what I like has a social commentary in it, or it's about race, or it's risky to do. That's what I like doing.
'Paranormal Activity' had fifty versions because it was $250 to reshoot. We'd screen it, see one thing wrong, shoot for an hour, fix it, and then screen it again. You don't have to be disciplined about it. On a regular movie, you have to screen it and think of every problem, reshoot for three days and solve every problem, and then you're done.
We make a lot of movies that I don't think merit a wide release. We have this label called Tilt, and we have the movies come out on that, and that's fine. But it shocks me when, having done this a few times, when I really believe a movie should get a wide release, and I struggle to get it released. That does surprise me.
You know how on movie sets there are specific chairs for each person? I hate that. We don't have names on our chairs. We have five chairs. Anyone can sit on them. I think the idea of names on chairs on a set is terrible. It's so dumb. So we got rid of that.
Not all of our movies work, but we take shots, and we're able to do that because we really stick to low budgets.
I love to go see big movies, I just don't make them. It's just a different business.
I love Hitchcock movies. I took a Hitchcock class in college, so I saw all his movies. I wrote papers on his movies.
Working with kids is always hard because you have to have very limited hours. They have to have breaks, and they have to have a tutor, and they have to have a lot of - good things! But it makes it hard to shoot.
When I was a kid, I really loved game shows. For whatever reason, I was fascinated with them and watched them a ton.
I'm a big believer in creating parameters for creativity. I think parameters make people more creative. So that starts with my budgets. I only do low budget movies, and I think that makes the movies better.
I've grown to love it, but I'm not like a lot of other people who were always crazy horror fans like Eli Roth or Quentin Tarantino.
I love horror movies, obviously; otherwise, I wouldn't make them.
I wish that more people were willing to turn down upfront money in exchange for doing things that are more original. Turning down a seven-figure check has a ripple effect on the budget, which has a ripple effect on the storytelling. The higher the budget gets, the fewer storytelling risks you're able to take.
The key to a good horror movie is what happens between the scares. The scares aren't the tricky part. If you're involved in what's going on in between, the scare is going to trick you. If you're not, the best scare in the world will not be scary.
Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne made very good money from both 'Insidious' movies. Word travels fast, so as soon as you have a success and do what you say you're going to do in a contract and pay out that money, we had a lot more established actors come to us and say they want to work with us.
The real scares on CNN, etc. and the scares in a movie, like 'The Purge,' are totally different. One of the ways you can tell when someone, whether it's a film maker or executive or producer, wants to make a scary movie but doesn't understand that distinction is they'll want to recreate too much of what's on TV.
Halloween is woke, and there's nothing we can do about it.
I love musicals. I love horror movies and I love art movies.
Unless you're making Marvel movies, I think CGI usually suffers, especially in mid-budget-range horror movies where you see CGI.
When DVD disappeared but before digital distribution came on strong, there were a few years where a movie that didn't get theatrical would just be gone.
Most of the most successful films Blumhouse has made have been rejected by everyone else. No one wanted to make 'Get Out.' Nobody. Nobody wanted to make 'The Purge.' I think it was floating around for three years before it came to us. Nobody wanted to make 'The Gift,' when it was a script called 'Weirdo.'
You've got to think of fun stories, and if the fun story happened to have a lesson, that's a great thing. If you build a movie around a lesson, you're in real trouble.
The first thing I learned as a producer is that you have very little control over the life of a project. Anything can stall a film from financing to scheduling to casting. Things fall apart all the time. Don't waste time on something that just won't get made. Try to have as many projects going at one time as you can handle.
One of my favorite things about making horror movies is, the first time you screen them in front of an audience, it's very fun to hear people audibly react to the work you put into a movie. You don't wonder at the end of the movie whether it worked or not.
I fundamentally believe that your words have so much credibility if you're not taking money upfront. I feel really comfortable pushing actors and pushing executives and pushing marketing people when we're not going to benefit financially unless the movie works. I feel like that makes the playing field so much more level.
I love South By because people are more relaxed here, and people are a little more off guard. They say things and react more freely than Sundance or Cannes. I love the feel of this festival.
I'm always trying to make movies that are better than the ones that we've made before. We don't always succeed at doing that by any means, but we're always trying to raise the stakes, raise the bar, make the movies better, and that's hard.
In big movies, interests are not aligned between those above the line and the financier, because above the line gets paid whether the movie works or not. The financier only makes money if the movie works, and that fundamentally sets up a contentious relationship.
There are so many factors that go into having a successful movie.. too many that you can't control.
I was lucky enough to have made a tonne of mistakes and be kind of frustrated. I was working in the movies for 15 years before I did 'Paranormal Activity,' so I was lucky enough to have that experience. So instead of trying to make, like, 'Godzilla' after 'Paranormal Activity,' I said, 'Let's keep making inexpensive movies.'
I think movies are overdeveloped in Hollywood. There's a big benefit to not overdeveloping and not being so precious about what you're doing. I think you lose a kind of vitality if you develop something into the ground.
The minute I was told what to do at any age, I did the opposite. Hopefully I'll do that for the rest of my life.
The one thing I am very strict about is that I don't like spending a lot of money on movies because the more money you spend, I think the worse that they get.
