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As Blumhouse celebrates 15 years of bringing horror to audiences, studio head Jason Blum looks back on some of his biggest triumphs (M3GAN) and misfires (M3GAN 2.0) in a new interview, which also draws out some of his more recent regrets—and his plans and hopes for the future. One thing we won’t be seeing, apparently, is a Blumhouse take on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre after the company came up short in the recent IP bidding war.
“We were in the mix. The deal isn’t closed, but we probably won’t get it,” Blum told Variety; the trade noted that A24, with a producing team that includes Glen Powell, is the clear frontrunner. There’s no elaboration on what a Blumhouse Texas Chain Saw might have looked like, but Blum noted, “I like taking IP that people are cynical about and turning expectations on their head.”
That definitely happened with 2018’s Halloween—though the excitement over David Gordon Green’s reboot trilogy faded with each new entry, and Blumhouse is no longer steering the good ship Michael Myers. “We don’t own the rights anymore. I had a three-picture deal,” Blum explained, though he’s not closed off to future opportunities: “I would do another Halloween movie.”
A franchise Blumhouse does have in its stable now is Saw, though there are no firm details yet on what shape that long-running series will take next. “It’s really hard to make 10 movies in a franchise—I don’t take that away from the original series’ producers. And I’m grateful to them for allowing us to continue,” Blum said. “My creative outlook is what I always preach: get the people who made the magic in the first place more involved. James Wan [the original director] will be hugely involved. That’s how we’re going to reinvent it.”
As for Blum’s dream projects… can you guess? Take a wild guess.
“Friday the 13th and Freddy Krueger, those are my two white whales,” he told Variety, which pointed out the rights for both Friday and A Nightmare on Elm Street are tied up elsewhere.
“We’re always haggling. I make a run at them every day. I will never give up the quest,” Blum said. (Presumably that means he’s talked to team Jason Universe.) “And if they make one without me, I’ll chase the next movie.”
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