After trying to work out an initial arrangement, Blumhouse Productions’ CEO, Jason Blum; recently announced that the firm chose to exit an unknown project; due to creative control difficulties.
Since its founding over 20 years ago, Blumhouse, the horror megastudio behind films like Insidious, Get Out, and Happy Death Day; has established a well-deserved reputation among horror fans. Blum is one of Hollywood’s most prolific producers, having produced hundreds of high-quality, go-to horror films throughout the course of his career.
The year 2021 has been particularly significant for the producing company. Welcome to the Blumhouse, Blumhouse’s ongoing relationship with Amazon Prime, delivered this year’s batch of horror-thriller segments last month. In addition, Blumhouse teamed with the streaming service to release Halloween Kills; the studio’s relaunched Halloween trilogy’s second instalment. Halloween Ends will be released in 2022, followed by Blum’s remake of the horror classic The Exorcist.
Blum recently revealed on Twitter that, despite the studio’s stellar reputation; Blumhouse had to abandon a “scary” project owing to conflicts over who would have creative control. In the comments area, the producer went on to say that “It had been a Finacier. “Not an artist” with whom Blumhouse had previously expressed dissatisfaction in the initial transaction, and he expressed concern that “they’ll regret this.” Blum is keeping quiet about the unnamed project, claiming that he wants to divulge the information “so badly,” but that doing so would be “cruel.” The following is the full text of his tweet:
It’s strange to think that any horror filmmaker would turn down cooperation with Blumhouse, yet creative control issues have hampered a slew of previous projects. Blumhouse, unlike other large companies, funds low-budget genre films and often offers directors complete creative freedom. Blumhouse is known for producing low-budget, high-reward horror films, which is an added bonus for filmmakers. Take, for example, Paranormal Activity, which was made for only $15,000 at the time. Despite various changes to bring the budget up to $215,000, the picture grossed a massive $193.4 million worldwide, making it one of the most profitable ventures of all time.
There is probably a slew of reasons why the unknown project’s creators desired complete creative freedom; and why Blumhouse felt compelled to seek it out in the first place. Those facts, however, are exceedingly unlikely to ever be made public. Regardless, the horror company has a lot of projects in the works; including a remake of The Wolfman starring Ryan Gosling and a remake of the iconic horror game Five Nights At Freddy’s. It’ll be interesting to watch if the creative control conflict between Blumhouse and the individuals behind this unknown movie or TV programme leads to anything; and if the studio’s attitude to new partnerships changes in the future.
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