Jason Blum Quotes
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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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Growing up in the '70s and '80s when my dad had an art gallery, one of the things that frustrated me was the world seemed so tiny, and to appreciate contemporary art, you needed a history of art, a formal education. I was more interested in the people, and that's why I went into the movie business in the first place.
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Rotten Tomatoes is the best thing that happened to the movie business because it means you have to make good movies.
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For some reason, people value being scared less than they value laughing.
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You've got to think of fun stories, and if the fun story happened to have a lesson, that's a great thing. If you build a movie around a lesson, you're in real trouble.
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Unless you're making Marvel movies, I think CGI usually suffers, especially in mid-budget-range horror movies where you see CGI.
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I love horror movies, obviously; otherwise, I wouldn't make them.
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I love musicals. I love horror movies and I love art movies.
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Anyone who has any kind of success in Hollywood wants to make more expensive movies and spend more money, be bigger. I think it's unusual to have success and want to stay small.
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Most people who've had a big hit movie like 'Paranormal Activity,' the next thing they say is, 'I want to make a $100 million movie.' I have no interest in making more expensive movies.
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I liked stuff like 'Halloween,' but I wasn't a horror fanatic until I was in my 30s and then made 'Paranormal Activity.' Now, having a company, I can't imagine doing anything else. But it took me a while to find my love for it.
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Ryan Murphy and I share our love of horror and musicals. I think those things somehow go together.
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I do want to grow our company, so the way I've been doing that is moving 'scary' to different things.
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Sundance is such an acquisition-frenzied, industry-centric experience, and at SXSW, many of the movies have distribution. And the focus is more on positioning the movie as opposed to selling them. People are more relaxed.
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Success stems from the producer creating the optimal conditions for the filmmaker's own creative process. Not from steering the filmmaker through a one-size-fits-all approach.
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In every art form, nothing exists in a bubble. It exists because of what came before it. A lot of bricks were laid. I think if it weren't for 'The Purge,' 'Get Out' wouldn't resonate as a mainstream movie. You push on the taste of the audience, in a way, get them used to something, and then you keep pushing on it.
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With most other genres, you need movie stars. With horror, you just need a story.
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When you have less risk, you have more fun. You can take risks. It's much easier to take risks when there's less money on the line.
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We're offered bigger, larger budget movies to produce a lot, and we don't do them. That's not to say there aren't exceptions: there are a few exceptions, but I try and stick by the rules that produce what I think is the highest quality, most innovative work and try and let the rules go that make us feel like we're retreading.
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Great stories and acting always win the day. If the story behind the scares is dramatic and the filmmaking is great, it works. If those things aren't great and the scares are secondary, it doesn't.
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I wasn't a fanboy of horror. I didn't grow up on horror movies. I grew up loving all movies. I still love all movies, but I particularly love scary movies - as much for the culture around them as the movies themselves.
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YouTube is found footage. It's here to stay, and people will always come up with new concepts that will make sense for found footage.
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You know how on movie sets there are specific chairs for each person? I hate that. We don't have names on our chairs. We have five chairs. Anyone can sit on them. I think the idea of names on chairs on a set is terrible. It's so dumb. So we got rid of that.
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One of the benefits of doing low-budget movies is you don't have to release them wide to recoup. You can release it in a smaller way, make your money back, and keep going.