Jason Blum Still Wants to Make Movies for Less Than $1M

Jason Blum’s name is synonymous with horror. And look up the word prolific, you’ll likely find him as part of that definition. Blum has over 200 produced credits to his name, mostly in movies but in television too. In 2025, he saw seven movies released, all in the horror field except one, the true-life drama The Lost Bus.

Over the years, he has given nightmares to audiences via massive horror franchises such as Paranormal Activity, Insidious, The Black Phone, The Purge, and Five Nights at Freddy’s but also earned accolades, including Oscar nominations, for Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, and Jordan Peele’s Get Out.

And he has done it mostly by generating his movies independently. And now, Blumhouse’s merger with James Wan’s bannerAtomic Monster, Blum is poised to be an even bigger movie player in Hollywood.

This Saturday, the Producers Guild of America is handing him its the Milestone Award, which honors “individuals or teams who have made historic contributions to the entertainment industry.” Past recipients have ranged from Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock to Steven Speilebrg and James Cameron, to Donna Langley and Ted Sarandos.

Seemed like a good time for a chat…

What do you think has been your biggest contribution to the industry?

I think my biggest contribution to the industry has been starting one of the last kind of independent studios with a brand that’s really based in keeping budgets down by giving artists equity, which allows for cutting edge television shows and movies. I did not read that, by the way. That was off the top of my head.

Have other people followed you or do you think you’re of the only ones doing that?

People are doing different versions of it and by the way, we weren’t the first to do it, but we were the first and only ones to scale it. We’ve been able to scale that approach as opposed to doing it as a one-off or two-off or as a side business.  We’ve focused for 20 years on making scary movies and expanded that activity so that where anyone looks for scary things, we are there in one way or another, whether it’s movies, TV shows, live events, merch.

You got into live events pretty early on. At what point did you realize that was a thing you could monetize?

It’s disingenuous to say we didn’t do it for money but it was also what I’ve been focused on since the very beginning, which is really connecting the name Blumhouse with things that are effectively scary. So I always thought if we did a live event that was great and it was called Blumhouse, more people would go to the movies, you know?

You recently hired an executive from Shutter, Sam Zimmerman. That’s in a bid to try and keep being plugged into the horror scene?

I wouldn’t frame it that way at all. As the brand has evolved and post our merger with Atomic Monster, we’ve been making slightly more expensive movies. Not expensive, but compared to what we used to make, more expensive. And I don’t wanna lose the capacity to make low budget and super low budget movies. We’re looking at some sub-million dollar movies, and I wanna have an apparatus to continue to do that.

Speaking to scaling projects, you’re redoing or re-imagining The Exorcist, you’re relaunching Saw, you tried to make a play for the rights to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Are you focusing more now on name IP?

Part of the company is definitely focusing on more name IP. Because in a post-COVID world, the originals that are working are fewer and far between, and the ones that are, are much bigger. In the last two and a half years, there’s been one movie under $5 million that’s broken out…

Which one is that?

The only super low budget movie that crossed over was Longlegs. And that was two years ago now. Obviously the originals that have completely connected with the audience last year, Sinners and Weapons, are much, much bigger movies. But the other movies that are really, really working are IP. Black Phone, Five Nights of Freddy’s, Final Destination. And I think because people now, when they go to the movies, they decide before they go. They don’t just show up and say, “I wanna see a horror movie.” They, more often than not, choose something that means something to them more than just a title.

So how do you avoid, and I’m going to use Disney here as a comparison, a situation where all you’re doing is live-action remakes? Yes, it can be incredibly successful, but the tap is going to run out sooner than later. You shouldn’t be just relying on some guy in a mask from 50 years ago, right?

First of all, I love being compared to Disney because we wanna be the Disney of Fear, so that makes me very happy. The very simple answer to your question is, you must keep doing originals. So this year of our five wide releases, we have two originals. We have Obsession and we have Other Mommy. So, so 40 percent of our slate this year is originals. And we’re gonna always continue to do originals. But it used to be fifty-fifty, and now it’s a little less than that.

What’s behind the shift?

COVID did a number on certain kinds of theatrical. You know, people, they want bigger experiences or they want movies connected to IP, or they want something that they’re familiar with from before. So there has to be a reason to go. Now, when you give them a reason to go, you can point out post-COVID that people have shown up bigger than ever before. Our biggest releases have been post-COVID. Five Nights of Freddy’s is our biggest movie. That was ’23…after COVID.

Last question. Going back to your entire career, do you have one movie that stands out above all?

Get Out stands out to me because it just hit every paradigm of what we did. It was super low budget, it was very unusual, it was left of center, and I think it changed the face of horror in a more profound way than really any horror movie of the 21^st century. I think what Jordan did with Get Out changed the trajectory of horror.

How so?

I think for better or for worse, he made horror cool. And if you like horror, it’s great. If you don’t like horror, it’s not good. I think a lot of filmmakers, who wouldn’t have done a horror movie before Get Out, tried one after.

So the A-V Club became very popular.

That’s a good way to say it. He made the AV Club cool. 

A version of this story appeared in the Feb. 23 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.