"Jason Blum"

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Speaker 2 So hello.

Speaker 2 Hello.

Speaker 4 This is not going to be a cold open.

Speaker 2 This is going to be a hot open.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Let's make it hot.
Let's give it

Speaker 3 a little bit of a summer theme on this on this on this hot open.

Speaker 4 Okay. Summer.

Speaker 3 So here we are. So we're on the beach.
And oh, look at those waves. Beautiful.
Huh? Is that a surfer out there? It looks like Will Arnett. Will, get on in here.

Speaker 2 We're doing a hot open. He's paddling in.
He's paddling in.

Speaker 2 You guys cool with the G string? Yeah.

Speaker 2 It has no. Will, don't turn around.
Don't turn around.

Speaker 2 Welcome to Smartlist. Smart.

Speaker 2 Less.

Speaker 2 Smart.

Speaker 2 Less.

Speaker 2 Smart.

Speaker 2 List.

Speaker 1 Jay, did you sleep okay? I slept like a log.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Willie you were missed last night.

Speaker 3 Lemon bunt cake and rice krispies really put me down.

Speaker 2 Did we went back to the bunt cake, huh? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Whose was that? Was that yours, Shawnee?

Speaker 1 No, that was a gift

Speaker 2 that somebody else brought in. Yeah, you were missed, well, I missed it.
Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't come.

Speaker 2 I had a dinner with the boys.

Speaker 2 By boys, I mean my sons,

Speaker 2 not with my golf buddies or something.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we had a nice,

Speaker 5 just my boys and me, which was really nice.

Speaker 2 That's nice.

Speaker 1 Isn't that nice? Did you watch a movie?

Speaker 2 No, we watched a little Sunday night football,

Speaker 2 which was fun.

Speaker 2 All the suits.

Speaker 2 And then we did, sorry so then we did do we do movie night at night before bed for the littles like to watch a little movie they call it movie night usually ends up being put a movie on in my room on the bed and then it turns into fight everybody gets weapons oh yeah and you don't fall asleep right away

Speaker 2 so last night Daddy hasn't hadn't seen Star Wars and he kept saying

Speaker 2 this is the real movie we're like I know from moment one he's like what's he doing what's this guy doing they're in a desk he literally at one point goes this is great human total human pure moment he goes as as c3p and rt2 r2d2 are walking on tatooen

Speaker 2 shot hold your boner uh

Speaker 2 he goes that's a desert and we go yeah and he goes there's no sea there you go no he goes i'm thirsty

Speaker 2 it was so

Speaker 2 it was so funny

Speaker 1 just right in that moment to say that so wait but back to football yesterday i was watching football too and i i don't understand why they the guy, when they know they have a camera on them, they just hold one nostril and they blow it out the other way.

Speaker 1 And it's so, they're always on camera, just blowing their nose out. It's like, just get a Kleenex.

Speaker 2 Oh, you're right. They should go get Kleenexes on this side.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they hand them everything out.

Speaker 2 Excuse me, can I get a Kleenex?

Speaker 2 But why do they all spit in baseball, too?

Speaker 3 I get that the chewing tobacco and stuff, but, you know,

Speaker 3 only half the guys are chewing tobacco now. It's just, but it's

Speaker 3 this weird, like, male i'm a male check it out i can spit i i see people on the street too that just like spit when they're like uh kind of uncomfortable or they know eyes are on them it's like yeah i'm a dude but it's it's people on a fucking golf course do it guys it's like you're not you're not a real man guy you know we're just out here playing golf

Speaker 1 i was in germany with scotty on a vacation and i spit in public he didn't talk to me the rest of the day yeah he's like what's the matter what are we doing yeah we got a huge fight i'm like now you just now you've got an escape valve.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? If you think about it.

Speaker 3 But like, why would, like, you know, you can swallow saliva. Like, it's built for that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but if you have to get it out, what do you do?

Speaker 3 But exactly. But what, what saliva is so

Speaker 3 bad that you've got to get it out, put it on the ground?

Speaker 2 Here's, here's the mission. And chewing tobacco, I guess.

Speaker 2 Here's the irony is that knowing JB as well as I do, and Sean and you and I know him almost as well as anybody, he could go either way with that.

Speaker 2 He could see somebody hork up, like have some spit and swallow it and go, gross, why don't you just get rid of it? Why would you, am I right about that, Jason? Yes. I could argue both sides.

Speaker 2 No, it's so true, right? Do you think if I was a lawyer, I would off card.

Speaker 3 Would I have been a defense attorney or a prosecutor?

Speaker 2 You would have been both.

Speaker 2 You would have come in. You're on or I'm representing both.

Speaker 2 Because I don't want anyone's involvement. No, and you don't want to be caught out being wrong in either way.
So you're just like, I'm going to cover both. You're like, my dad does that.

Speaker 2 My dad goes, he'll say, he'll make a point and go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're about, you go, intake, you're about to make a point.

Speaker 2 And he'll go, having said that, and you're like, oh, you're going to argue the other side. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And we're going to get to our guests right now, but Jay, Jason told, I've never heard that story unless you told it and I don't remember. And we don't have to tell it right now.

Speaker 1 But Jason was doing a play and he bought

Speaker 1 the cat.

Speaker 3 Oh my God, that story. I was trying to remember what story I told you last time.

Speaker 1 God, it was so funny.

Speaker 3 I think I've said that on this before.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 1 I don't remember.

Speaker 3 Just some horrible example of what a fucking monster I was in my early 20s.

Speaker 2 Did we talk about last time the thing that we're not going to talk about yet? We did, right? What's that?

Speaker 3 Yes. No, yeah.
Please don't even think about it. We did, right?

Speaker 2 What is that?

Speaker 3 I don't know. I'm just going through that.

Speaker 2 The stuff that we're looking into doing with, did we?

Speaker 2 Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 3 You guys are in control of the video.

Speaker 2 We didn't actually talk about it, did we?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 we've got to do it.

Speaker 2 That we're planning on doing something. We're really excited.
We don't want to say yet, but we are excited

Speaker 2 about something because we've had, we've had, the three of us have talked to, people have said to us, like, hey, you should do something with the brand as gross as that sounds. Very gross.

Speaker 2 And then right for a while, we've sort of, and kind of like when we were thinking about going on tour, we're like, hey, should we do that? And blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 So then we were like, should we do something? And then we've sort of zeroed in on something that we are going to do within the Smartless world that we're really excited about.

Speaker 2 We can't really say it yet. And sorry, we're not sort of teasing it on purpose to not make you guess, but it is something that we are excited about.

Speaker 2 And when it finally comes to fruition, so kind of bear with us, but it's something pretty cool and that feels really organic to what we do. Right.

Speaker 1 Right. But first, we're going to say hello.

Speaker 2 Yes. Ah, how about that?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 We're huge fans of our guests today, not just his prolific work, but the man behind the Empire. is a dear friend to all of us, a self-proclaimed weird kid.
His favorite holiday was Halloween.

Speaker 1 After graduating from Vassar, his career started as a real estate agent in Manhattan before working his way up at a major movie studio. Today, he's a three-time Academy Award-nominated

Speaker 1 two-time prime tame. Do you know who this is?

Speaker 1 And a three-time Peabody Award-winning producer. His company, for which he is CEO and founder, is considered the driving force in one of the last genres to get people into the theaters.

Speaker 1 He's our brilliant friend, Jason

Speaker 2 Jason Blumhouse. Blumhouse.
Oh, look at him.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's got his little warm jacket on.

Speaker 2 Look at him go. We're doing it.
We're finally doing it.

Speaker 5 This is a very, very important day for me.

Speaker 2 This is. Everybody just take it easy with me.

Speaker 5 So, Noel, it's not probably the listeners who are as excited as I am because, you know, what I'd like to share, you know, with all your fans, by the way, I have, I guess, like all your guests have been listening, like...

Speaker 5 The way not to sell your product is literally the last five minutes is exactly you you you basically said We're doing something someday. We're going to tell you about it.

Speaker 4 I mean, I've never, I mean, that was stupid.

Speaker 5 It was, it was, it was unbelievable, which is why, which is why, I'm, which is why I'm very happy to be here to kind of help you with your chocolate bars. You know, yes.

Speaker 3 Well, it's just like if you were like selling one of your movies, it's like buying a billboard and just having it just be black.

Speaker 5 We might make a scary movie, it might come out someday, and I'm not telling you what it's called.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 so by the way, effective.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but for my sister, who may not know you, but knows the name of your company, Blumhouse. Blumhouse makes all the hit horror films you've ever, and it's all because of you.

Speaker 1 Every horror film out there is basically every hit horror film, the good one, basically at Blumhouse.

Speaker 2 You're saying horror, right? Horror, yeah, horror horror, horror. Scary.
Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I just got to get something off my mind first, though, before we start talking about horror. I just, because you guys are being really, you know, polite, which I, which I appreciate it.

Speaker 5 But I think it's important for all your gazillions of listeners to know that

Speaker 5 I know all of you individually.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 5 I've known Jason the longest, but you know,

Speaker 5 we have relationships. And I just, I think it's important for everyone to know that individually over the last, since,

Speaker 5 how long is Smartless? Two or three years?

Speaker 2 Five years.

Speaker 2 Four and a half. Four and a half years.

Speaker 5 I've probably over the last four years sent a total of 15 emails, five to each of you every three or four months, timed separately,

Speaker 6 begging to be on

Speaker 6 separately. begging

Speaker 5 now the harsh the harshest response is jason just doesn't reply i'd love to promote the new movie on smart list ghosting me

Speaker 2 no

Speaker 2 not like that i don't think so i changed my email address

Speaker 2 Which one?

Speaker 2 Not only emails and texts, you also have done individual lunches, dinners,

Speaker 2 and collective dinners.

Speaker 5 And a collective dinner.

Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 5 Lunches, collective dinners, and everyone in my family and everyone in my company knows this has been the golden chalice. So for me, I just need a moment to let this wash over me.
This is a pinnacle.

Speaker 5 Forget those dumb awards. This is

Speaker 5 a mountain I've been trying to climb for four and a half years. Ted Sarandos, if you remember, when he went on, I said, you got to put me, they're going to put me on now.

Speaker 5 It's been two years since Ted Sarandos.

Speaker 2 I love that Blum said, forget the dumb awards. He didn't say forget the money because you never forget the money.
Here's the one thing.

Speaker 2 let me say this let me say this forget the money tooth never forget the money two things one is this you've you've known jason the longest but we met longer ago than any of us oh no that's true in the mid 90s we had a dinner in which you spent 90 of it on the phone outside in the east village with your former boss yes uh

Speaker 2 being berated being being being berated the other thing is i noticed you're wearing your jacket and one of the reasons is because you've been sleeping outside since you're

Speaker 2 in the middle Let's talk about that. Still not improper.
It's still not improper.

Speaker 2 I am still, since the moment you showed me your sleeping situation, Blum, I am obsessed with it. And people use obsessed, but I am literally obsessed with walking through it.
I am through it.

Speaker 2 I never, yeah. Walk us through it, please, if you can.

Speaker 5 My grandmother lived in Northern California in Petaluma, where we still, we still actually, I still have, I still have that little, this little house. And it was, you know,

Speaker 5 I don't know if it was before air conditioning, but she didn't have air conditioning. And they had these things, I guess in the 30s and 40s, really, is when it started called sleeping decks.

Speaker 5 And you would just kind of put a mattress and sleep outside in the summer to stay cool.

Speaker 5 And when I went to go visit my grandmother, I used to always sleep outside on a little mattress in a sleeping bag on the sleeping deck.

Speaker 5 And ever since that time, I've always wanted a house where I could sleep outside. And about five years ago, we got this house in Rustic Canyon, and I built a deck outside the bedroom.

Speaker 5 And we have a completely screened-in porch.

Speaker 5 There's no heat, and my wife and I sleep there every night and it feels great.

Speaker 1 And now people don't realize California, it actually really does get really, really cold.

Speaker 2 Well, it gets cool at night. Yeah.

Speaker 5 48, 46 is about the coldest that it gets. I sleep with a hat.
See, my hat. I sleep with the hat on.
And I sleep with, I have, you know, sweats and sweatpants.

Speaker 2 And I don't wear gloves.

Speaker 2 And, and, and, and, and you don't need a sound machine because right next to the sleeping deck is a creek.

Speaker 4 There's a little creek.

Speaker 2 So there's a little creek.

Speaker 5 We have water. And it's right in the middle of Santa Monica.

Speaker 2 And I said to Blum, I go, and we were in there, and he was showing me, and I was just blown away. And I go, especially as a Canadian, I was really impressed.
And I said, how do you sleep out here?

Speaker 2 And he goes, incredibly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Incredibly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then it doubles down because what happens as soon as you wake up from that freezing night?

Speaker 5 Then

Speaker 5 I walk down, it's a balcony with an outdoor stairway, and I do a jump in my cold plunge very quickly which is very trendy and pathetic but I do it and then I take a then I think it's a 37 degrees it's a 37 but I don't I used to stay in for a minute every morning yeah and um uh Vivi Nevo stays in for a minute or something and I used to stay in for a minute every morning and then I was started getting sick like every two weeks I was getting a different sickness and I'm convinced it was because I my I was doing that so now I just go in for like five seconds wakes me up and then I jump into a warm shower and I'm and I'm on my way to school now couldn't all of this be solved by just opening the windows in your main bedroom?

Speaker 2 No, just open the windows, doesn't not the same at all, not the same, not the same. Oh, not at all, not the same, not at all.

Speaker 5 Because every so often we sleep in the bedroom with all the windows open, it's just it's not the same.

Speaker 2 And Lauren's on board with all this.

Speaker 3 Does she do the cold plunge too?

Speaker 5 She does not do the cold plunge, but she loves sleeping outside, and we sleep outside together every night. She doesn't do the cold plunge, but uh, Sean, you used to sleep outside, right?

Speaker 2 Sorry, a five guys. Every time they opened a new five guys, you'd sleep outside

Speaker 2 Way more to open.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I got so excited.

Speaker 1 I was, I'd starve myself.

Speaker 3 Now, Jason, the eccentricities don't, don't stop there.

Speaker 3 Let's talk to, let's, let's explain to Tracy about the traffic situation and the parking situation in Los Angeles and how you've managed to circumvent that problem.

Speaker 2 Okay. Right.
But

Speaker 1 before that, and yes, I want to hear that. I just want to tell Tracy, like, you know, Insidious, Paranormal Activity,

Speaker 1 The Purge, Get Out,

Speaker 1 it goes on and on and on. I just want to let get people.

Speaker 2 These are films that Jason has produced is what you're trying to say. That's right.
That's right.

Speaker 3 He's responsible for all of these. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 Split, Halloween.

Speaker 2 You left. That's right.

Speaker 5 A couple of Five Nights at Freddy's, Megan.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 4 The gift.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Jason was in the middle of the day.

Speaker 5 Most importantly, the gift.

Speaker 1 But I say all that because you can accomplish all this because, to Jason's question, you have

Speaker 2 a van. A van.
Is that what you're talking about? That you drive.

Speaker 5 I'm obsessed with efficiency. I'm obsessed with efficiency.
Yes.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 one of the things I was very fixated on is I've always kind of struggled with

Speaker 5 life in L.A.

Speaker 5 And whether, you know,

Speaker 5 I'm always very hot and cold on L.A. But one of the things I really don't like is

Speaker 5 driving and traffic and valet parking and parking and all of that stuff.

Speaker 5 I really much prefer public transportation. There was a while when I lived downtown that I took the subway in LA.

Speaker 2 I would take an Uber.

Speaker 5 This is it in LA. You take an Uber, well, went right downtown.
So you'd take an Uber to the stop in Santa Monica and then take the train and then I could walk to my house.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 5 That's a very LA way to take the subway.

Speaker 5 But anyway,

Speaker 5 the best thing. This van.

Speaker 5 And I'm in my second generation of van, but when I always said if I made a hit movie, I was going to do this for myself. And the first hit I had was Paranormal Activity.
And I went right out.

Speaker 5 I bought myself the used Chevy Astro for $10,000.

Speaker 5 Now, at that time, this is about 12 years ago, there were very few minivans with a flat bottom, like a handyman. All of the minivans had a hot

Speaker 2 bottom. For the back axle.
I understand.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 this was completely flat. And so we took a minivan and I took it to a guy who did car stereos and gave him, I think, 20 grand or I think the whole thing was 30,000 bucks.

Speaker 5 And he built an office in the back. So I had a computer, I had a keyboard, I had a printer.

Speaker 2 That's crazy.

Speaker 5 And a screen went up and down, all the windows closed. So I would.
make it impossible for myself to backseat drive.

Speaker 5 So I would never say like, I wish you take, I would never think about, I wish you were going this route or this route or the traffic here, the traffic there.

Speaker 5 Because if you're in your thing and you're working, it doesn't matter if it takes 20 minutes or if it takes 30 minutes.

Speaker 4 It's like a Waymo now.

Speaker 2 It's like a Waymo. Exactly.

Speaker 3 So you're rolling calls, you're watching cuts, you're receiving facts.

Speaker 2 I'm doing my email.

Speaker 5 I'm printing out my boarding pass. You could print out your little speech.
I'm printing out my speech.

Speaker 3 And then if you need to park somewhere and there's no parking, what you did was you painted on the side of this van, what?

Speaker 2 Oh, I did.

Speaker 4 I painted.

Speaker 5 It was a, it said, it said electric. It was an electrician van, but it said electric.
Oh, commercial residential electrician. Yeah.
So it looked like an electric.

Speaker 2 power or something. A blum power.

Speaker 2 It looked like a commercial vump. It looked like a commercial little handyman.

Speaker 5 It looked like a handyman.

Speaker 3 Yeah. One cone and you're good.

Speaker 2 You know who used to do that? You know who used to do that a lot and was really effective for Gret was the Stasi, the secret police in East Germany.

Speaker 2 And they would drive around and it would look like a bread truck and they would nab people off the street and stuff them in the back and then take them to the Stasi headquarters to torture them.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean?

Speaker 6 So this is.

Speaker 5 The second part is a movie. We don't see that for real.

Speaker 1 I actually bought speakers out of the back of some guy's van at a gas station. I did.

Speaker 5 That could have been the guy who redid my van.

Speaker 2 Did he have a flat bottom? And they were not real. They were.

Speaker 2 No, otherwise it wouldn't have been empty. And they weren't real, right? They were fake.
They were empty, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, they were empty, totally.

Speaker 3 Now, Jason, you say your struggles with L.A.,

Speaker 3 that implies you came from somewhere. Where is that place?

Speaker 5 Well, I was born in L.A. I lived here till I was five, and then I grew up in New York.
I grew up until eighth grade.

Speaker 5 I went to public school in Dobbs Ferry in Westchester, and then I went to boarding school in Connecticut, which was very traumatic.

Speaker 5 And then I went to Vassar in Poughkeepsie, and then I lived in New York. For my first 10 years of

Speaker 5 motion picture shenanigans, I lived in New York in the 90s. I graduated in 1991, so I was there from 91 to 2000.
And then I moved to L.A.

Speaker 5 in 2000, and I've always thought about moving back, but I never really.

Speaker 2 But you didn't, but when you first moved to L.A., and you alluded to the fact that you lived downtown, for a while, you lived in a hotel. You never wanted to commit.

Speaker 5 I lived at the Ritz.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was great.

Speaker 5 I love that. I still own the apartment if anyone wants to, but I cannot sell that thing for the whole time.

Speaker 2 What about the traffic about Laker games and stuff, though?

Speaker 3 Like when they were building crypto and or Staples or whatever.

Speaker 5 Oh, Laker games was amazing because I had a meeting. I had great parking.
I could just park at my house.

Speaker 5 Well, I didn't really, I'm not really go to the Lakers, but

Speaker 5 I could go to Staples to see shows.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but you couldn't get in and out.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I loved it.

Speaker 5 It was great. It was rare.

Speaker 5 I know what you mean. Like if I was coming back and there was a Lakers game.
Yeah, sometimes it was a pain in the ass.

Speaker 2 It wasn't that bad.

Speaker 3 It wasn't that bad. Now, do you not miss like the idea? It just sounds so ideal.
First of all, I've seen the Vassar campus

Speaker 3 and it's incredibly beautiful. I can only imagine the boarding school in Connecticut was also gorgeous.
Like when you moved out here to Los Angeles, did you not miss?

Speaker 3 Because we're recording this in the wintertime here in LA.

Speaker 3 And it's just, you know,

Speaker 3 the leaves are finally turning and, but it's like that most of the year in

Speaker 3 back east. Do you not miss all of that?

Speaker 5 Yes, I miss. That's what I'm saying.
I struggle with living in LA. I miss it terribly.

Speaker 5 We're in Connecticut for the summer. I made a deal with my wife.
My wife kind of prefers LA, but we made a deal that when school holidays, we go to the East Coast.

Speaker 5 So for all summer, I get to be on the East Coast, which I love.

Speaker 1 But where you live in LA is like, feels like the East Coast. Very likely.

Speaker 2 You have wooded gorgeous forestry. Yeah.
That's true. That's true.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 5 And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 You know what? Because you're a real estate agent. That's so funny, by the way, I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 Wait, what? He was a real estate agent.

Speaker 5 I was a licensed real estate agent. Where?

Speaker 5 New York. I did it for Croman Real Estate 1992, 1993.
Yeah, it was an amazing job.

Speaker 3 In New York City?

Speaker 5 In New York City. That was after I sold cable TV.
First, I sold cable TV door-to-door, commission-only. I made $29 a sale.
That's it. You only made money if you sold someone cable TV

Speaker 2 in Chicago.

Speaker 5 No, Prime Cable of Chicago. Yeah.
Prime Cable of Chicago. I loved commission-only jobs.
And that's why, and the movies are the same thing. I don't get paid on our movies.

Speaker 5 I only get paid if the movies work. And that started when I was really young, you know, doing shoveling driveways.
And actually, shoveling driveways is a good example of it.

Speaker 5 Is if I had to work for a landscaper and you get like, you know, five bucks an hour, or you could go shovel driveways and say, well, do your whole driveway, give me 10 bucks or 15 bucks.

Speaker 5 And I always, I hated getting paid always

Speaker 5 like a salary work for hire. I always liked getting paid for the exact work that I did.
Right. Right.

Speaker 5 So when everyone else was a waiter, I sold cable because I'm like, I can make more money if just pay me for the sales. And the same thing with the real estate.

Speaker 5 And when everyone else was a rail, I was a real estate agent because you only got paid if you rented people's apartments. And I always like, I always loved sales.
That's cool.

Speaker 2 That's wild. I still love sales.

Speaker 1 Because you have the person, you have that,

Speaker 1 you're such an amazing personality that I wondered if you, how did that kind of aid you in when you crossed over to producing? Because you're such, you're so personable.

Speaker 2 Everybody loves you. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 5 uh the best i always say that think the best training i ever got for being a producer was um was real estate because you you get it's the same as being an actor you get rejected all the time so most people don't rent the apartment right most most movies you don't get most movies you don't get made so it got you very

Speaker 5 It gets you very used to being rejected and just keep, you just got to keep trying. Very, very similar to acting.
You got to keep trying and keep trying. It is sales.
And it works. It's sales.

Speaker 3 Every part of this business is sales

Speaker 3 unless you save a studio job and you're on the buying side.

Speaker 5 But even them, they're selling. They're selling a direct.
They're trying to, studio people are salespeople too. They're selling.
They want directors to direct thing they don't necessarily want to do.

Speaker 5 They want actors to do things they don't necessarily want to act in, right? They want their boss to make a movie their boss doesn't necessarily want to make.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 everyone's selling. Everyone's selling to a certain degree.

Speaker 3 And your company's so big now, you're doing both sales and you're buying and selling at the same time, right?

Speaker 3 right yeah people coming in all the time trying to sort of sell you a pitch on something and you've got to make a decision and do you like toggling back and forth between that I do I do I like toggling back and forth buying I um would you get a bumper sticker that says I like to toggle

Speaker 2 I'd rather be toggling I'd rather be toggling I actually paint that on my van I like to be toggled I'm like Jason I like to do both sides I like to begin toggling electric toggling electric

Speaker 2 toggling electric long-lost switch let me ask you let me ask you this Okay, I want to get into this.

Speaker 2 What is the current? You and I have talked about this before. I said, well, can't we do a comedy? I remember about a year and a half ago or something, we had lunch and I said, could we make a comedy?

Speaker 2 You said, there's no money in it. And I said, really?

Speaker 2 I mean, in effect, you said that.

Speaker 2 The state of movies.

Speaker 5 There's no money for me in it.

Speaker 2 There's no money for me.

Speaker 2 Right. Yeah.
No, no, I got it. You're not going to be paid.
You're not going to pay me. Don't worry, I can't tell.
I got it. I'm not getting.

Speaker 5 I'm not the comedian.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, no. I got it.
I read that. But

Speaker 2 what is the state of theatrical films on this planet right now from your perspective? Can people still make them? Can they make money? Do people want to go and see them?

Speaker 5 Okay,

Speaker 5 let's just clear the record. On the comedy, my response was not, I can't make money in it, although that is true.
But the reason that we don't do comedy is because

Speaker 5 I think horror really works.

Speaker 5 need a you don't need massive massive stars for theatrical

Speaker 5 horror yeah because it's about TV different thing TV comedy different thing but for comedy for a comedy to work comedy is just very hard to work in movie theaters there's so much great comedy all of you guys have been part of a lot of it on television horror doesn't really work on TV there's a lot of great comedy on TV so to make and for for comedy to work theatrically I still think it's very hard anyway and you need a huge star so that it becomes it becomes expensive and there was a time as you as you know know.

Speaker 5 And I like making expensive movies.

Speaker 2 As we know, there was a time, especially in the early aughts, where

Speaker 2 there were a ton of big comedy films driven by big stars.

Speaker 2 But as we know, especially if we go back and look at a lot of them,

Speaker 2 I've always maintained it's hard to make a good comedy film because

Speaker 2 of the nature of making film does not lend itself to that element of surprise, et cetera. In television, you have to make it quickly.
You have to keep moving. And so it works for comedy in that way.

Speaker 2 Making movies can be often tedious and quite boring. A, that's what.

Speaker 2 But, so it's funny that

Speaker 2 comedy works on TV and horror does not and vice versa.

Speaker 2 But what about the state of theatrical

Speaker 2 movies, of film?

Speaker 5 Well, this is constantly on my mind. And I actually texted, I texted Aaron this morning, you know, who runs all the AMC

Speaker 5 theaters because they had their biggest, their biggest weekend ever.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 5 And I keep trying, I've been asking everyone,

Speaker 5 I trust on that.

Speaker 1 Like, is this like an anomaly or do you think the yeah, but but look at what but look at what worked: it's a, it's Wicked, which was an IP already established for 20 years, Gladiator 2, which was a massive movie, Moana, which was an institution in and of itself.

Speaker 1 Two sequels.

Speaker 5 Well, that's different. If you're saying, people don't want original movies, they don't.
Like, they say that they want them, but actions speak louder than words. That's right.
People want

Speaker 5 familiarity. The reason they're all sequels and remakes, that's what they want.

Speaker 5 That's what the audience is. The audience is showing up to that consistently, consistently, consistently.
And even more so now, if you look at horror this year,

Speaker 5 one horror movie in 12 months really hit. Original.
There were six or seven sequels that worked, but one original horror.

Speaker 2 I don't think you'd have to go back.

Speaker 5 Long legs. Yeah,

Speaker 5 I think you'd have to go back 10 years for

Speaker 5 to see where only one original horror movie worked. I mean, it's.

Speaker 2 Have there been any outliers in terms of films, horror and or otherwise, that have done well in the last, let's say, since the pandemic, since 2020, in the last four and a half years?

Speaker 5 Anything? Well, yeah,

Speaker 5 Five Nights at Freddy's was last year's our highest-grossing movie of all time. Wow.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that was the original?

Speaker 5 No, it's based on a game.

Speaker 1 It's based on an IP, yeah.

Speaker 2 But based on a game.

Speaker 5 Based on the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that did 300 million bucks. I'm sure.

Speaker 5 We had our best.

Speaker 5 Megan was a huge movie. Black Phone was a huge movie.
Quiet Place is not our movie. Huge movie.
Conjuring.

Speaker 5 Those were post,

Speaker 5 you know, Quiet Place was this year. Those were all post-pandemic.
Horror franchises

Speaker 5 are,

Speaker 5 like I said,

Speaker 5 we had our Insidious Five last year. It was the highest-grossing Insidious movie of all five of them.
And that was the first time.

Speaker 2 And it was the most insidious. Most

Speaker 2 five far.

Speaker 2 I'm sure you've seen all five.

Speaker 2 Of the five, it was the most insidious.

Speaker 3 So, hey, so, Jason, without getting too much into the weeds for folks like Tracy, can you speak, what do you think the current appetite is in the business for these sort of these trick deals where

Speaker 3 instead of an actor getting paid a bunch of money up front, like when you're talking about this scenario with comedy, where by having a big star in there, it becomes sort of cost prohibitive.

Speaker 3 But I think some

Speaker 3 actors, Cameron Diaz is one of the famous ones that did it for a teacher,

Speaker 3 a bad teacher, where she basically didn't take a lot of money up front, but then had this definition for the back end of a profit participant where if the film did really well, she got paid a lot of money and she did.

Speaker 3 Because I know your model, without getting into stuff you may or may not want to talk about,

Speaker 3 you seem to be open to this type of structure in the interest of trying to get as many at-bats as possible in the hopes of finding a great movie.

Speaker 5 Well, no, it's more than that.

Speaker 5 Like, that's our main tenant of our entire business is no one gets paid up front, including us, just like my real estate and just like my, just like my cable TV, like no one gets paid or you get paid minimum scale.

Speaker 5 And if the movie works okay, you get paid okay. And if the movie works really well, you should get paid more than you've ever made before.

Speaker 2 That's our whole

Speaker 2 business.

Speaker 5 The toggle business is also an if-come business, by the way. It's a fantastic if-come business.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 But I remember you saying that.

Speaker 2 I remember you, Blum, talking about who I won't name, but an actor who is in one of your films in the last five, 10 years, who's a well-known actor, who you said, they made more money doing this.

Speaker 2 They took nothing up front. They made more money doing this than they'd made on anything they'd ever done.

Speaker 5 They've ever done. That's true.
That's true. And that's how we keep getting people to work for us and take a gamble.

Speaker 3 And you didn't mind doing that, right? You didn't mind writing those checks to that.

Speaker 5 The greatest thing I can ever do is if I write the biggest check that anyone's ever made on my movie,

Speaker 5 it's like complaining. It's like complaining about paying a lot of taxes.
Like if you're paying a lot of taxes, things are amen.

Speaker 2 Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 So then why do you think that's not more universally embraced?

Speaker 5 Well, it is. So I wrote an article in the New York Times.

Speaker 5 It was an op-ed. I was very proud of it.
And you can go back and read it.

Speaker 2 I don't read it of Tracy.

Speaker 5 No, Tracy can go back and read it.

Speaker 5 Or I'll read it to you. For New York Times, and it was all about the fact that I believe

Speaker 5 in my heart.

Speaker 5 If there's one, there are no rules to making movies and TV shows in my mind, except one, which is if people have equity in what they're making as opposed to being paid up front, what they're making is better.

Speaker 2 It just absolutely

Speaker 2 is.

Speaker 5 And that view has been very not,

Speaker 5 has been very out of fashion until the streaming correction, which happened about 18 months ago.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 5 to put it in very broad terms Starting in about 2010 there was an enormous amount of money Wall street gave not just Netflix but all the streamers money not based on their profit but based on subscriber numbers and the way to get subscriber numbers was to spend more and more and more and more and so the industry as a whole spent more money than it was making because it wasn't using profit as a metric.

Speaker 5 Right. You with me?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 5 18 months ago, when Netflix stock dropped, it's now back to beyond what it was before, which is going to tie into what I'm saying. But 18 months ago, Wall Street decided that's dumb.

Speaker 5 Streaming companies and media companies need to be like every other company, which means they need to take in more money than they spend.

Speaker 5 So we're no longer going to reward you for streaming numbers or anything else or what you might eventually make in streaming. We're going to reward you for what actually makes money.

Speaker 5 So that all the people who make content had to take a much closer look at their budgets. And the budgets are now all coming down a lot.

Speaker 5 And the quickest, most effective way to bring a budget down is to pay the people who make the most money, which are the actors, the writers, the directors, and the producers, people who make the most money much less unless the thing that they make makes money.

Speaker 5 And that's what's, and that's, that's, that's now.

Speaker 3 But the trick with streaming is that the ability to calculate what a profit is

Speaker 3 becomes vague, yes.

Speaker 5 Yes, but it's not not it.

Speaker 5 That's such gobblyguck. It's the easiest thing in the world to create.

Speaker 5 They have the data of everything. You just have to decide.

Speaker 6 A penny a minute, a penny an hour.

Speaker 5 It's so easy to do.

Speaker 2 What about what everybody universally decides on? It's way easier

Speaker 5 to make up a profit definition.

Speaker 2 Here's the other thing that's interesting, by the way. Go ahead.
Here's the other thing.

Speaker 2 I think this is a great area. This is the other thing.

Speaker 2 And I think that it's pretty cynical in the sense that

Speaker 2 the streamers, like you said, were given exorbitant amounts of cash to try to do that, to grow their business and to get subs.

Speaker 2 Well, it turns out that they figured out within that time, and this is probably five years ago, they realized when they started to offer things,

Speaker 2 they started to offer ad

Speaker 2 customers.

Speaker 2 Ad-supported customers.

Speaker 2 They realized that their ad-supported customer was worth more to that to them than a subscriber um that that they would get more return on and so eventually what the consumer doesn't understand that eventually we are going to be going back to the old formula from before

Speaker 2 yeah so we're just we're just coming to the tail end of this huge cycle that was virtually meaningless and now we're back to ad supported uh viewing is going to be the thing that they are going after, et cetera.

Speaker 4 Am I right?

Speaker 5 Streaming is just basically, it's basically an electrified VCR. That's all it is.
You can watch anything whenever you want, but otherwise it's going to be like it was before.

Speaker 5 I don't know if I totally agree with that,

Speaker 5 but

Speaker 5 it's changed a lot and it's changed not very much.

Speaker 3 I do agree with most of that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because all the people that work at the streamers worked at the networks. Well, that's true.
They're almost all the same people.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 2 That culture has shifted and all that stuff that they said that separated them and made them different at all the streamers now does not separate them or make them different.

Speaker 2 And it's very, very difficult.

Speaker 3 Well, but hang on. I mean, we're talking about something that for the most part is subscriber supported.

Speaker 3 The ad

Speaker 3 supported viewer is a small fraction of that.

Speaker 2 They want it to be bigger.

Speaker 5 Not as a part of the general population because people still watch a lot of network TV. But for streaming, ad-supported streaming is a smaller piece than subscription for sure.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and it's still hard to argue with, you know, having 250 million people spending $15 a month is a pretty yummy business if you can retain those people month after month after month after month.

Speaker 3 And it really is, it's a retention business. It's not an ad-selling business.

Speaker 2 It's well, you know,

Speaker 5 it'll be both. You'll have, and by the way, movies are different than in a different category than what you guys are talking about.

Speaker 5 Studios is different, but there will be a bunch of people, a bunch of subscribers paying a premium for no ads, and then there'll be a bunch of people

Speaker 5 watching programming with ads for either less or no money.

Speaker 2 JB, I don't disagree with you. What I'm saying is that that is what they have decided that they want to move towards because it is more profitable.

Speaker 2 And I guarantee you, all of them are going to do, going to tend towards the thing that is more profitable. It's what they want.

Speaker 3 If it was more profitable, then why wouldn't linear television be in better health?

Speaker 2 Well, there are, because there are things that are showing up to be that are proving that, which are things like Tubi and all these sort of fast channel types of things.

Speaker 2 These are proving to be really effective ways that people are watching stuff who don't want to have to pay the subscriber a monthly fee and who are willing to watch ads.

Speaker 2 And that kind of stuff, that stuff is growing. It's all about what's available.

Speaker 2 Do I have Tubi?

Speaker 2 That's a long callback.

Speaker 2 That is

Speaker 2 like a three-year-old callback.

Speaker 1 Jason Blum,

Speaker 1 I want to talk about your stuff because I'm a fan.

Speaker 2 And so first of all, I want to start. You're getting

Speaker 2 away. He's got 17 million questions for you.
I do. I do.

Speaker 1 Paranormal activity is one of my favorite movies. I watched it a year ago with my nieces.

Speaker 2 Yep. Quote it.

Speaker 1 Well, just, I could talk about it all day long.

Speaker 2 Then start. Okay.

Speaker 2 Keep saying it. You're like a rapper who goes, I'm going going to rock the microphone.
Wait till I get on the microphone. And you're like, okay, you've got the microphone.
Fucking do it.

Speaker 2 The fuck, hunter. And when I get on the microphone, I'm really going to, then fucking do it.

Speaker 5 That's how I felt about this mystery product coming though.

Speaker 2 I mean, I know that's true. That's true.
Fair enough. Fair enough.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm, oh, by the way, I'm a hypocrite in my core.

Speaker 1 But Jay, Jason, tell me about it, because wasn't it true that the studio wanted you to remake it or they didn't like it or whatever?

Speaker 1 And how did you convince them that they had gold and all that kind of stuff?

Speaker 5 Tell me about the paranormal activity.

Speaker 2 I'll do that.

Speaker 1 And that isn't that the one that kind of went through.

Speaker 2 I was like,

Speaker 5 yeah, yeah, yeah. That was what

Speaker 5 launched the company. But

Speaker 5 I had a guy,

Speaker 5 this very sweet fellow who I'm still friends with and a very good producer, a guy named Steven Schneider. And he was a horror expert.

Speaker 5 I had a deal at Paramount, and he had a deal with us, and we had a deal with them. And Paramount,

Speaker 5 you know,

Speaker 5 whatever was ignoring me and this guy steven showed me this movie uh

Speaker 5 uh showed me paranormal activity and i saw it like you know on a dvd at my house way and it'd been

Speaker 5 you know at a couple festivals and whatever and uh you were living in new york at the time i was no i was living on sunset plaza in my in my bachelor pad on sunset plaza before i moved downtown

Speaker 5 and uh and uh exactly and uh and i had passed on blair witch project like i can't believe that so now you're remaking it yes

Speaker 5 We're trying. We're trying.

Speaker 2 We'll see. I'm trying.
I'm crazy.

Speaker 5 But yeah, I passed on it. And I was never like my boss just was like, you idiot for a year, you know, a year.
I had to listen to that.

Speaker 5 But when I saw Paranormal, I had this like, oh my God, what if this is Blair Witch?

Speaker 5 And I didn't, I didn't say like this movie is going to be, I didn't think the movie is going to be anything what it turned out to be, but I definitely thought there was something to it and I thought it was worth screening it in front of an audience.

Speaker 5 That's what, that's what I learned from Blair Witch is if you see anything somewhat that might be good, throw it in front of an audience and watch it.

Speaker 2 Because you love testing.

Speaker 5 I love testing.

Speaker 2 So anyway, I see.

Speaker 2 The smile on his face when you said that. No, but

Speaker 2 I've heard you talk about that.

Speaker 5 Testing is my dream.

Speaker 5 I don't like friends and family testing.

Speaker 2 I like testing with real objective people.

Speaker 2 Testing the film

Speaker 2 in front of a random regular audience. And then they all fill out what they liked, what they didn't like, and you get it done.

Speaker 5 I'm not such a big fan of that, but I like watching the movie with a regular crowd.

Speaker 2 That's the best feedback ever.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 So anyway,

Speaker 5 I have an, you know, this, this itch I want to scratch on this movie.

Speaker 5 And I met the director, and he had basically sold it to a, he sold it for a hundred grand to direct a DVD to IFC, by the way, who never forgave, a guy named Jonathan Searing was there at the time.

Speaker 5 He never forgave me for this. Because, you know, I said, it's the deal done.
He said, no, it's not done, but I think I'm going to just sell it for 100 grand.

Speaker 5 I said, I think the movie should be in theaters. I told him the Bitter Witch story.
I said, give me a cut of whatever you make after you make $500,000.

Speaker 5 So I'm not going to cost you anything unless I make five times the money you've already made. Then I want a piece.
But until then, nothing.

Speaker 5 And let me come on and partner, see if I can get it made with you. Anyway, three years goes by.
No one wants the movie.

Speaker 5 do the movie with the audience like I want to do. It's very clear.
If you see the movie with an audience, it's going to be a crazy hit. It's very clear.
But I'm the schmuck producer.

Speaker 5 I call everyone and say, you got to watch this movie with an audience. They say, well, we've already seen it.
We got the DVD here. It's sitting on my assistant's desk and the movie sucks.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 3 that's the way a lot of conversations go in Hollywood.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. Wow.

Speaker 2 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 5 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 5 So, three years into this, I get, I get,

Speaker 5 you know, Paramount won't return my calls, and it's, and it, you know, and I get, uh, it still drives me crazy that the movie wound up with them because they hated the movie forever.

Speaker 5 But I get DreamWorks,

Speaker 5 this guy, Adam Goodman, and I know Adam. You know, Adam.

Speaker 2 You remember Adam, right? Great guy. I made a couple movies with him.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Adam and Ashley Brooks, and they're working at DreamWorks. And they were really into the the movie.
I give them credit for that. And they said, but we're going to remake the movie.

Speaker 5 You know, we'll put famous people in the movie. Movies have found footage movies, so I don't know how it could work with famous people.
But I say, this is

Speaker 5 my flash of brilliance, of which I've had, you know, two in my career, but this was one of them.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 5 I said, I will, first of all, you got to pay me $150,000 because I need more than $100 for Oren. So I got to get them an extra $50,000.
Second, you got to put the original movie on the DVD.

Speaker 5 When we remake the new movie, you got to put the original movie on that DVD because I want it out there somewhere.

Speaker 2 Oh, wow. Third,

Speaker 5 you have to test the original parental activity. You have to test screen the film in Burbank with 300 people.

Speaker 5 And you, Adam, and it was Stacey Snyder, his boss, and Stacey Snyder, you guys have to be there.

Speaker 5 And not because I want to release the movie, because if I said that, they would have said, you're an idiot.

Speaker 5 I said, because when we remake the movie, I want to invite the writers who are going to write the remake.

Speaker 5 and I want all you executives to be there with the writers so we can decide which parts we're going to redo and which parts we're going to leave.

Speaker 2 Right? I love that. I love that.

Speaker 5 And then I said to the director, Oren, who I give Oren so much credit for sticking with me all this time, you know, three years into this, he had 150 grand three years ago.

Speaker 5 He's still sticking, he's sleeping in my guest house for half the time.

Speaker 5 He was in San Diego, but he used to sleep in my guest house all the time for all these dumb meetings we would have where people would say the movies don't work. And I said to Oren, Oren,

Speaker 5 I I will bet you, you know, a nickel that if Adam and Stacey watch this movie with a recruited audience, which was impossible to do, if they watch this movie with a recruited audience, they're never going to talk about the remake again.

Speaker 5 Just trust me. And by the way, worst case scenario, if they do, you're going to get a buck fifty instead of a hundred.
So it's no lose.

Speaker 5 And I still remember Oren, Stephen, and I went to this screening. It was in Burbank and Stacey was there and fucking people went insane.

Speaker 5 and right three people left the theater because they were too scared right and the movie ends and everyone goes nuts and stacy i will never forget stacy snyder is at the bottom of this and she's literally the the the writers were there for the remake they disappear and stacy has the three of us pitching us the 30-second TV spots of how she's going to sell the movie.

Speaker 5 Why the theatrical release?

Speaker 2 Why the movie as is?

Speaker 2 As is.

Speaker 5 The remakes are off the table.

Speaker 5 And then Steven gets the

Speaker 5 Spielberg gets the results of the test. He sees it like two days later.
He loves it. And DreamWorks is releasing our movie.
And then

Speaker 5 another thing,

Speaker 5 I won't go into it now, but DreamWorks then and Paramount split up. And DreamWorks went to Disney.
And Disney DreamWorks could not have their first release be paranormal activity.

Speaker 2 Right, right, right.

Speaker 5 So we were saddled with Paramount and another year of shenanigans, which is how it wound up with them.

Speaker 2 No way. Another year from that movie.

Speaker 5 It was a year.

Speaker 5 They said they weren't going to release it.

Speaker 5 They blackmailed us. They blackmailed us into releasing the movie.
I've never really been this straightforward about it, but I will be now.

Speaker 5 We had, based off that test screening, we were able to sell 5 million bucks. of international sales.
So based off the fact that it was going to get a domestic release by a studio,

Speaker 5 we had $5 million in sales. All the France and Germany, we sold territory by territory, right?

Speaker 3 You're already in profit.

Speaker 2 By a lot of people.

Speaker 5 Oh my God, in profit by the movie cost 15 grand.

Speaker 5 So we had 18 months to get the release, which, by the way, no problem. Stacey and Steven Spielberg love the movie.
DreamWorks is releasing the movie. Boom.
Disney, we're at Paramount.

Speaker 5 Paramount's like, we're not releasing the movie.

Speaker 2 Wow. And it went on.

Speaker 3 Why were they opposed to releasing it?

Speaker 5 They thought it was a piece of shit, like everybody else.

Speaker 5 And the only

Speaker 5 savior was that when Disney and

Speaker 5 DreamWorks broke up, Adam Goodman and Ashley Brooks moved from DreamWorks to Paramount. So internally, they were doing what I was doing on the outside.

Speaker 5 So on the outside, I was, and internally they were saying, guys, you gotta, but everyone was saying to them, you guys are insane. Don't do this movie.

Speaker 5 And basically, what happened, in retrospect, history is rewritten like they did this strategic smart release no Adam and Ashley got them to agree to pay a million bucks to in P ⁇ A to do this tiny release of the movie

Speaker 5 and we contributed like I think five or six hundred they came to us and say we'll only put in a million if you take 500 of the five million you have from international which we know you're gonna lose in four months and you put 500 up and we'll put 500 up and we'll put it in in 13 theaters demanded which was only that was that the whole marketing thing was just like how can we spend as little money as possible to get this movie out there i mean isn't it amazing that you have this that exactly i've never really really told it's incredible that that part of the story but it's amazing

Speaker 1 but but but it's isn't it amazing that you have this thing and what it takes to get people to believe in it and you just didn't stop and isn't it fascinating that you can see it but the people in charge can never see it Why is that?

Speaker 5 Well, no, it's, you know, those stories, though, I mean, you guys know these stories too.

Speaker 5 It's, it, I have a little, like, it's always annoying The story, there's so many stories of I believed in it and no one, nobody didn't. Right.

Speaker 5 It's the, the, the, the, the, it's, it favors the, the producer so much because executives, they, they can't, they, they, their job is to look at 400 things and pick 10.

Speaker 5 So it's an, they have to not believe in 300 and right things.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 5 So it's not really fair. Producer's job is to pick 20 things, believe in all of them, and 10 go, you know, whatever it is.
So I always think those stories are kind of dopey and including this story.

Speaker 5 Like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's fascinating, though.

Speaker 5 No, I don't, but it's fascinating, except it's not like I give myself credit for that one thing of,

Speaker 5 you know, putting that language in the test screening. But anyone, any of you or anyone, if you saw the movie with an audience before it came out, you would know it was a hit.

Speaker 5 It's just I couldn't get anyone into the theater.

Speaker 2 Right, right, you're right.

Speaker 5 There was no genius of knowing that.

Speaker 1 But you did, and it still took all of that that work to get it.

Speaker 2 You know, well, I had no clout.

Speaker 5 I had no clout. You know, it's like this little,

Speaker 5 you know, this guy with no, like, I had no track record. I had produced six independent movies.
They were all terrible. One was okay, and five were horrible.

Speaker 5 So it was like, why am I going to, why am I going to waste my night and be away from my kids by this schmuck producer when everyone in my team has seen the movie and they think it's not good?

Speaker 5 Which, by the way, which I get too. Yeah.

Speaker 3 How under the hood do you like to get creatively as far as like script notes and edit notes and all

Speaker 5 I hate being on set. I like running my production company.

Speaker 5 I give usually a couple of notes on a script, a few notes on a cut, depending on the cut.

Speaker 5 Sometimes I give more notes on the finished movie than the script. But Cooper Samuelson, who you know well, he's the

Speaker 2 great Cooper Samuelson.

Speaker 5 He's the great, we've been together 10 years and he really runs the movie. No, he does run the movie company and he is very, he and his team are extremely involved.

Speaker 3 What would you say is your fastball then? Like identifying a filmmaker, a concept, a script? Where do you think your greatest talent lies?

Speaker 3 If it's not getting in there under the hood day-to-day quality control, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 5 Well, I'm a great picker. I'm a good picker.
I'm a very good picker. I am a good picker.
So that is quality control. And I'm a good seller.

Speaker 5 You know, and I'm not talking about it's easy to raise money for the movies now, but

Speaker 5 I'm good at talking people into working for me, you know, working for us. You know, I'm good at it.
But I have a, it's a good, it's an easy thing for me.

Speaker 5 It's an easy thing to sell because I believe it. I really believe in our model and I believe in the company and I believe the model leads to better movies and shows.

Speaker 5 And the only thing that I was going to say is there's, there are really no other companies that just do one thing. And that's been a huge advantage to us.

Speaker 5 And now, you know, the, the second, the, the, the, the second, the only other company that really does just do one thing like we do at scale is james wand's atomic monster and now atomic monster and blumhouse you know we put the companies together yeah um 16 months ago and um and it's a huge advantage to not do horror as like a side hustle you know which which that's what the studios do obviously but also most production company most other production companies they do all the thing and we do the occasional horror movie and that's all we do i see every horror movie that's mom that's of course you're good at because that is what you do you're a specialty you understand it and now you have you're doing it with James Wand talk a little bit about your your relationship with James Won and and how that came to be

Speaker 5 well we I'm interested in growing the company and I really felt like this kind of this is actually kind of it kind of ties together a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about is that is that I don't believe you can make Let's just talk about movies and not TV for a second.

Speaker 5 I don't believe you can make movies.

Speaker 5 You can make more movies that are good

Speaker 5 by just hiring more people, right? And remember, we only get paid if our movies are good or if they work. If they don't work, we don't get paid.

Speaker 5 So for us to go from four or five movies a year to seven or eight movies a year, we have to keep the quality the same.

Speaker 5 If the quality goes down, it's a disaster. So the only way for us to grow is to go from four or five to six or seven.

Speaker 5 And it was my view that the only way to get to six or seven was to bring in a partner, not just to hire four more executives, but to bring in a

Speaker 5 partner who was a visionary who was doing this on his own.

Speaker 5 And if you take Blumhouse and Atomic Monster, and if those two companies just continue to do

Speaker 5 what the companies have done on their own the last 10 years,

Speaker 5 it's like 60% of theatrically released horror movies have been done by those two companies.

Speaker 2 Yeah, talk a little bit about James Wand.

Speaker 2 Some of the things that we're talking about,

Speaker 5 first of all, he's a massive director, director, separate business, Aquaman, Fast and Furious, right? But he birthed Insidious with us, which is how I met him. But

Speaker 5 Atomic Monster is best known as the production company behind the conjuring universe. So all the conjuring movies, Annabelle,

Speaker 5 La Yorona,

Speaker 5 huge. It's a map, yeah,

Speaker 5 The Nun, The Nun 2. Nun 2, you know, no one ever talks about, but Nun 2 was the second highest grossing horror movie of all time last year.

Speaker 5 $270 million.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 5 No one talks about it in Hollywood.

Speaker 5 So anyway, so

Speaker 5 next year, 25 is our first year where our release date slate will be, we're up to our eight movies. We have Wolfman, we have two original movies.

Speaker 5 We have a Chris Landon movie called Drop, and then we have Megan, then we have Black Phone, then we have

Speaker 5 Five Nights of Freddy's 2, and then we, and then these guys have a Mortal Kombat movie and a Conjuring 5 movie. So next year is our big year.

Speaker 2 What percentage of box office does horror make up now domestically?

Speaker 5 It's like a billion dollars a year. A billion dollars a year.
So

Speaker 5 it's about eight, nine, about a little, right, about 10%.

Speaker 2 Good lord.

Speaker 2 So every award show where we're lauding all these other people, they should do the first five minutes should just be a standing O for you and Juan just to say thank you for keeping us all at work.

Speaker 2 And now let's let's get to the Oscars. Yeah, first of all,

Speaker 2 five-minute standing oh, blum. Right.
And they are

Speaker 3 starting a long time ago. They got really cinematic and less sort of like, you know, the rap they used to get with Slasher and Exploitative and whatnot.

Speaker 3 They're like beautifully made films now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's less TNA. I will say that.

Speaker 2 Sorry to knock it. Not to knock it.
Sorry about that.

Speaker 5 Now, do you know I heard, maybe somebody talked to you about this on the show, but do you know I heard that kids don't want TNA in movies now because there's so much of it on the internet that they don't want TNA in movies anymore?

Speaker 2 Wow, no kidding.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no progress.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and they don't want their driver's license either because there's Uber.

Speaker 2 You know, if you can get it somewhere else, I don't want it here.

Speaker 1 Jason Blum, I'm a big fan of Get Out, and

Speaker 1 we don't have time to go through it because we've got to let you go, but I didn't know there was.

Speaker 3 God, you're already over time.

Speaker 2 Jason, you're very good at helping.

Speaker 2 This might be the quickest we've ever gotten to it and feel like we're just starting.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we really are.

Speaker 5 I got so much more to go into.

Speaker 2 God, I thought you were going to be a disappointing guest. Oh, I know.
It's been four years.

Speaker 2 Bateman kept saying, I'm not going to respond to this guy.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to respond to him.

Speaker 5 No, then imagine before the show said, did Blum email you the other day?

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 I want to go.

Speaker 2 Who's going to break first and then Sean? I got Sean broke first. Wait, wait, Sean had a question, though.
Do ask it. Caller? No, well,

Speaker 1 it's too long to get into, and I can probably just Google it, but I did not know there was a different ending to get out.

Speaker 5 There was. That was a note I had.
That was

Speaker 5 an end day to get out where Daniel died and

Speaker 5 wound up in jail, wound up in jail. Something

Speaker 2 right.

Speaker 5 Yeah, we shot it. It was at the test screening and we tested it.
And me and my very like, you know, not, not, not thoughtful self, I come bounding down the aisle. I'm like, Jordan, the movie's great.

Speaker 5 You cannot leave this end.

Speaker 4 Like, I didn't, I didn't hedge.

Speaker 5 I didn't wait.

Speaker 5 You have to change the end. I said, Daniel is too good.
Everyone is in love with him. The movie's amazing.
And you cannot end him with him in jail. Like, it's just, it's horrible.

Speaker 1 And did Jordan say, yeah, but that was your idea?

Speaker 2 Yeah, he said, but that was your note. No.

Speaker 2 You sent me that note from the back of your van.

Speaker 2 You said you were on Cawenga. You idiot.
You idiot.

Speaker 5 No, he was a man. No, I pitched him some horrible idea of what it should be to keep.

Speaker 1 So in the original, she, she, I forget the name of the character, the girl in it, the lead girl.

Speaker 5 Allison Williams.

Speaker 2 Allison Williamson Williams.

Speaker 1 I haven't seen her in a long time, but

Speaker 1 she ends up getting him in jail.

Speaker 5 Is that what you're doing?

Speaker 5 I think now I'm forgetting, but I think the end, he's in jail. He winds up in jail.
Like, there's a scene of him.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's so good, Harry.

Speaker 5 It's like so sad.

Speaker 5 And Jordan, you know, a month later, he had a new idea for the end. He reshot it.

Speaker 3 And what a filmmaker.

Speaker 2 Amazing filmmaker. Amazing.

Speaker 1 Tell me your favorite horror film.

Speaker 3 Oh, just a softball right here at the end.

Speaker 2 Yeah, just so it can alienate everybody he works with

Speaker 2 other than the person he names.

Speaker 3 Any funny stories of you going up on a lion on stage?

Speaker 5 I like Hitchcock movies. Those are my favorite

Speaker 5 in terms of like those.

Speaker 5 Those are my inspiration movies.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so listen. You got to get out of here.
We got to get out of here.

Speaker 2 What Blumhouse movies

Speaker 2 are people going to come and see in 2025? Tell us right now. He just did.

Speaker 5 Man is Wolfman. Wolfman is January.
It's great. It's Lee Wannell who did The Invisible Man.
It's amazing.

Speaker 3 Is that Julia Garner?

Speaker 5 Julia Garner and Chris Abbott.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Wolfman is January. Okay.
Wolfman is January.

Speaker 5 This original movie by Chris Landon, who did Happy Death Day.

Speaker 2 Michael Landon's son.

Speaker 5 Michael Landon's son called Drop with Megan Fahey, which is great.

Speaker 2 Drop.

Speaker 5 And then we have Megan 2.

Speaker 2 Megan 2.

Speaker 2 Summer release.

Speaker 5 Summer release. Then we have Black Phone 2.

Speaker 2 Black Phone Ethan Hawk. That's Scott Derrickson with the Great Ethan Hawk.
With the Great Ethan Hawk. He's the grabber.
That is the grabber.

Speaker 1 I thought they caught him.

Speaker 5 Then we have Five Nights at Freddy's 2. Now, clearly, you guys missed the first one, but

Speaker 5 you've got 12 months to see the first and then see the second.

Speaker 2 10 nights at the Monster. Christmas release.

Speaker 5 Christmas release. This is

Speaker 5 the December release. And our friends at Atomic Monster have the next conjuring movie, have Mortal Kombat.

Speaker 5 So it's...

Speaker 2 It's a full suite of great movies it's a monster year you should consider doing you should consider doing the year after for five nights of freddy do it as a christmas movie 12 nights of freddy tie it into christmas yeah it's a great idea that's a free you're welcome it's a free one it's a free one from us to you drumhouse is bringing you all the movies you want to see go and go and see them we urge you we urge you to go and see them and you're an unbelievable guest well you're an unbelievable guest unbelievable guy took me four years but i there was a lot of pressure i had to make it work

Speaker 2 you delivered Thank you, guys. You delivered.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 Say hi to Lauren, please.

Speaker 5 Okay, I will. Lots of love to all of you.

Speaker 2 Love you. And congrats, by the way, your news.
Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 5 Our little daughter.

Speaker 2 Bye, buddy. All right, thanks, guys.

Speaker 2 Bye, pal.

Speaker 3 The man has a gift for Gab. You know, we could expand this to four hosts and very easily come in.

Speaker 1 But aside from, totally, aside from buying a movie from him, I would buy a house from him.

Speaker 2 I know. Yeah.
I'd let him shovel my driveway. Yeah, I'd let him shovel my driveway.

Speaker 3 I'd let him fix my wiring, huh?

Speaker 2 With the electric van.

Speaker 3 No, a very, very good person, and so is his wife. And just,

Speaker 1 I don't know, a good guy. Yeah.
I mean, and a perfect example of

Speaker 1 how to succeed.

Speaker 1 You know, like when you're kind of starting out in this business, if there's any young producers out there, it's a perfect person to kind of, you know, look for inspiration of how he did it.

Speaker 3 I know, but it's like, how would you, what, but how would you say, like, you know, he does have, I was trying to break down, like, what, what's the recipe to become Jason Blunt?

Speaker 1 His personality.

Speaker 3 But, I mean, but not to belittle his ability in the business, but people skills is an enormous part of this industry, no matter what lane you're in.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 2 And I will say this, and I will say he has the, the, the, I was thinking about it too, throughout the thing, like, what is it that makes him so successful other than he's got, he says that he's a good picker, he's got tremendous people skills he understands but he's really smart yeah and you have to be a lot of things and he's a lot so like it's a good place to start is being really smart yeah you know j be nothing

Speaker 3 huh oh no i was looking at a text um and um i thought are we gonna

Speaker 2 be inattentive now we know why you're not him because he would never do that no no not at all well rob armyarv stop texting me while we're doing the wrap-up god damn damn it. Rob is texting you.

Speaker 3 We have to have pickups. We have pickups we have to get to.
So let's get to a buy. Sean, you have anything on the list?

Speaker 1 I don't have anything on the list that fits.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 3 How about,

Speaker 3 you know, let's try a new thing. I'm going to give you a word here that I'd like for you to work into a buy.
Okay. And it's, it's, the word is bifurcate.

Speaker 2 Okay. Will, would you like to go to the next one?

Speaker 2 We did that one last last week, right? Okay.

Speaker 3 How about

Speaker 1 a buyback?

Speaker 2 What's a buyback?

Speaker 2 A buyback. What is a buyback?

Speaker 3 Somebody with two backs?

Speaker 3 A buyback would be if you wanted to purchase something back from somebody.

Speaker 1 Oh, well, I would never want to do that to one of his films. I would never want to go into his film after seeing something so spectacular and ask for.
I would never need to.

Speaker 2 I would never need to go into his thing.

Speaker 2 I feel like this is going to be really lazy. I know.
I feel like this is

Speaker 2 never asked for it.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you need a buyback.

Speaker 2 Bye.

Speaker 1 Even if we all even saw it coming

Speaker 2 out, it could be called Bayee.

Speaker 2 What's that, Michael? Instead of Get Out, it could be called Baye. Baye.
There you go. Oh, yes.
It didn't clear.

Speaker 3 It was already taken. But yeah, the original title for Get Out was Bay.

Speaker 2 That's good.

Speaker 2 Smart.

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