Jason Blum may have been making “more expensive” movies since Blumhouse merged with Atomic Monster, but he wants to keep making “super-low budget” films too.
Jason Blum wants to keep making “super-low budget movies”.
The horror producer – who has over 200 credits to his name – recently merged his Blumhouse company with James Wan’s Atomic Monster, but just because he can now make “more expensive” films as a result, Jason doesn’t want to turn away from the smaller work he is known for.
He told The Hollywood Reporter: ” 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.”
The M3GAN producer is re-imagining The Exorcist and relaunching the Saw franchise, as well as attempting to secure the rights to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Jason admitted it has grown increasingly more difficult for “originals” to do well at the box office.
He said: “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…
“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.”
Jason previously revealed he’s “always haggling” to land his “white whale” movies – Friday the 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street.
He teased to Variety: “Friday the 13th and Freddy Krueger, those are my two white whales… We’re always haggling.
“I make a run at them every day. I will never give up the quest. And if they make one without me, I’ll chase the next movie.”
When it comes to his own original properties, Blum gave a promising update on the future of M3GAN, despite the M3GAN 2.0 sequel being largely panned earlier this year as it flopped at the box office.
He insisted: “M3GAN will ride again. I’ll find a way.”
He previously opened up on how the studio mishandled the follow-up to the 2022 horror blockbuster.
He told The Town podcast: “We all thought M3GAN was like Superman — we could do anything to her. We could change genres, we could put her in the summer, we could make her look different, we could turn her from a bad guy into a good guy.
“And we kind of classically overthought how powerful people’s engagement was, really, with her.”
Jason Blum wants to keep budgets low
