Jason Blum

Birth Name: Jason Ferus Blum

Height: 188 cm

Emmy award winning producer, Jason Blum is the founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, a multi-media production company that has pioneered a new model of studio filmmaking- producing high-quality micro-budget films. Blumhouse has a first-look deal with Universal Pictures and has produced the highly-profitable Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Insidious, and Sinister franchises which have grossed more than $1.2 billion worldwide on combined budgets under $40 million. Blumhouse's model began with the original Paranormal Activity, which was made for $15,000 and grossed close to $200 million worldwide, making it the most profitable film in Hollywood history.Blumhouse's award-winning projects include The Normal Heart and Whiplash. BH Tilt is a new label from the company dedicated to movies from Blumhouse and other filmmakers that will be released across multiple-platforms taking advantage of new distribution strategies.In television, Blum won an Emmy for producing HBO's The Normal Heart. Blumhouse's shows include Ascension (Syfy), Eye Candy (MTV), and South of Hell (WEtv) and the division's development slate includes Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects with eOne and an un-scripted show with Mike Darnell. In addition to The Normal Heart, Blumhouse previously executive produced Stranded for Syfy and The River for ABC.Blumhouse has also produced a variety of live-events including The Blumhouse of Horrors, haunted house experience in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, The Purge: Fear the Night, a live-event inspired by the backstory to the feature film and The Purge: Breakout, an immersive escape game experience.Before Blumhouse, Blum served as co-head of the Acquisitions and Co-Productions department at Miramax Films in New York. At Miramax, he was instrumental in acquiring over 50 films including The Others, Smoke Signals, A Walk On the Moon and The House of Yes.Blum has produced over 75 films and TV series throughout his career. His credits also include: The Reader, for which Kate Winslet won an Academy Award; Hysterical Blindness, starring Uma Thurman, which aired on HBO and garnered Thurman a Golden Globe Award; and Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke, Bill Murray, Sam Shepard and Kyle MacLachlan.Blum began his career as the producing director of the Malaparte theater company, which was founded by Ethan Hawke. Show less «

We have a lot of data for everything, so it's not to say we don't give lots of notes on the script, ...Show more »

We have a lot of data for everything, so it's not to say we don't give lots of notes on the script, lots of thoughts about casting and lots of thoughts about the cuts of the movies. But the directors are free to take what they think makes the movie better and not use what they think doesn't make it better. And surprise, surprise, when you give a director total control, they listen more, they solicit us more. The dialogue becomes healthier. Show less «

There are a lot of parallels between doing a sequel and doing low budget movies, which is they give ...Show more »

There are a lot of parallels between doing a sequel and doing low budget movies, which is they give creative parameters. As a creative person myself, I work better with parameters as opposed to anything goes. Sequels force you to work creatively so that you don't make a movie that people say, 'That was so original, why was that a sequel? That should have just been its own movie. It had nothing to do with the first movie'. You don't want them coming out saying, 'Well, that movie felt exactly like the first movie. Why did I waste $14.50 on that?'. I think that's fun. I really like the challenge of that. Show less «

If I was giving someone $30 million to make a horror movie, I would want every decision to be looked...Show more »

If I was giving someone $30 million to make a horror movie, I would want every decision to be looked over by many, many people. But if you keep budgets down, you can let James Wan do what he does, fast, and let him focus on making the movie he wants to make. And if he wants to do something that seems a little out of the ordinary, if the budget is low it's okay to let him do that. Show less «

Success is always a surprise. Maybe I lose a little less sleep, but still I lose sleep. There's the ...Show more »

Success is always a surprise. Maybe I lose a little less sleep, but still I lose sleep. There's the movie itself obviously, there's marketing, there's the weather, current events. Everything can be right and then you have bad weather and you're suddenly in trouble. There are so many factors that go into having a successful movie.. too many that you can't control. I'm always thrilled and always surprised. Show less «

At this time last year, I had 9 out of 10 movies that I categorized as a sure thing...Of course, non...Show more »

At this time last year, I had 9 out of 10 movies that I categorized as a sure thing...Of course, none of them worked out the way we thought they would. [The flop] Jem and the Holograms (2015) was a sure thing and in fact, it did the worst of all of them. It's very tortuous, and it also should say that anything that any of us say today should be taken with a big grain of salt.[2015] Show less «

[his advice for aspiring filmmakers] Raise whatever you can and shoot whatever you can for whatever ...Show more »

[his advice for aspiring filmmakers] Raise whatever you can and shoot whatever you can for whatever amount.[2015] Show less «

[on making horror films with an open ending] That I really discourage our filmmakers to do. On a mic...Show more »

[on making horror films with an open ending] That I really discourage our filmmakers to do. On a micro-budget movie, I always tell them to make a great movie. If you make a great movie that succeeds, we'll figure out a sequel. Show less «

There's a real correlation between not spending a lot of money and having fun.[2015]

Jason Blum

Jason Blum's FILMOGRAPHY

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