Jason Blum Quotes
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I love horror movies, obviously; otherwise, I wouldn't make them.
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The most effective tool I have to work with artists I admire is to point to other artists that I admire and show that I've worked with them many, many times. It's not because I have option deals; it's because they want to keep working with us.
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When I was working for Miramax, before Sundance, a videotape of 'The Blair Witch Project' - of the full, completed movie - went to a lot of the buyers. And so we all saw it before the festival, and I passed, a bunch of people passed... Then I watched the movie marching toward success, and was reminded by my bosses what a dope I was.
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The one thing I am very strict about is that I don't like spending a lot of money on movies because the more money you spend, I think the worse that they get.
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I think it's frightening for all of us to contemplate that there's more to the universe than just us, in whatever form it takes, that there are higher forces at work, and to me, that's always a scary notion.
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We make movies for the cineplex. They're designed for wide release. They're designed to be seen by a lot of people and eventually make money.
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People look down on it, but I love the community of horror. Writers and directors are a tight group of people, and we help and support each other.
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It's hard to make a movie that's very expensive and not be thinking of the results all the time.
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The way we structure our backend, we key the payments to the box office - so that cuts the negotiating way down, and it's very transparent. One of the things I'm most proud of is that we're really transparent with our process.
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What I loved about 'War Dogs' was the fact that the tone - turning that story into a spectacular two hour ride is just such a complicated thing to do.
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I'm attracted to things that make a point or have a certain point of view, but it's not a conscious thing that I decide to do every morning. Unconsciously, what I like has a social commentary in it, or it's about race, or it's risky to do. That's what I like doing.
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I think the location is almost as important as casting the leads of the movie. The location on 'The Purge' was crucial to that movie working.
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I fundamentally believe that your words have so much credibility if you're not taking money upfront. I feel really comfortable pushing actors and pushing executives and pushing marketing people when we're not going to benefit financially unless the movie works. I feel like that makes the playing field so much more level.
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Working with kids is always hard because you have to have very limited hours. They have to have breaks, and they have to have a tutor, and they have to have a lot of - good things! But it makes it hard to shoot.
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I put more emphasis on filmmakers than maybe Hollywood does.
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Not all our movies have a social message, but I love the ones that do, and I'd love to do more of them.
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I tell directors, 'I can't promise you a hit, but I can promise you the movie is going to be yours.' When you work for a studio, they pay you a lot of money, but in exchange for that, they tell you what to do.
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My favorite thing about horror is that it attracts this great group of nuts, of which I include myself in. I was always kind of an oddball. I collected my fingernails, for instance.
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I'm proud of 'Sinister' because Scott and Cargill did a great job on the movie, and I set up a framework for them to make what they wanted to make. They gave me the idea, and I figured out how to get it out into the world.
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I never wanted to get paid by the hour. If I was going to do more work than another guy, I wanted to get paid more.
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We were producing 'La La Land'... and then we weren't. So it was a very painful topic, but I'm happy the movie was as successful as it was. And, of course, I wish we had produced it.
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I try not to put pressure on filmmakers to come up with a big scare at the beginning. I think that helps let the audience settle in and get to know the people they're about to spend 90 minutes with. Once the scarier stuff happens, it's scarier because of that.
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When I was a kid, I really loved game shows. For whatever reason, I was fascinated with them and watched them a ton.
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Hollywood looks backwards and tries to repeat. And we really try not to do that. We don't always succeed, but I really think that what we try and do is different.