Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Wednesday, October eighth, twenty
twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Lyttleton. I am co
editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in
LA He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around
the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
(00:22):
in our cover story segment, we'll talk with Variety Senior
entertainment writer Matt Donnelly about his profile of Jason Blum,
the leader of Blumhouse, is the recipient of Variety's first
ever Master of Horror Award. And we'll hear from William Earle,
Variety's executive digital director, who knows the horror genre better
than anyone else on the planet. He'll talk about the
(00:45):
Horror Impact List that he assembled. He found thirty world
beaters in the world of frights and shivers. But before
we get to that, here are a few headlines just
in this morning that you need to know. Chris Aronson
is exiting Paramount Pictures as President of Domestic Theatrical Distribution.
He'd been with the studio since twenty nineteen, after working
(01:07):
for Fox and MGM. Aaronson's goodbye memo to staff ended
with a quote from the band leader of The Titanic.
He wrote, to paraphrase Wallace Hartley, it has been a
privileged playing with you. There still hope for Heat two.
The movie project had been simmering at Warner Brothers. Now
(01:29):
it's moving over to Amazon. MGM Studios. Director Michael Mann
talked about doing a follow up to the intense nineteen
ninety five crime thriller in the Variety cover story that
ran in August twenty twenty three. Cable operator Charter Communications
has cut a deal with Comcasts to make the Charter
Spectrum News local channels available on Comcast systems in Connecticut,
(01:51):
New Jersey, Orlando, and Tampa, Florida. This is not a
big deal on its face, but it's another sign of
coordination among large cable operators that could help the PayTV
ecosystem in the long run. Game shows are having a renaissance.
Netflix has ordered a competition series based on the board
(02:12):
game Clue. Miss Scarlett, Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum. They're all back.
I heard they held out for big deals. No word
yet on a Premiere Day. All of these stories and
so much more can be found on Variety dot com.
Right now. Now we turn to conversations with Friday journalists
(02:34):
about news and trends in show business. In our cover
story segment, we'll hear from Matt Donnelly about his profile
of Jason Blum. Matt sat down with the purveyor of
Blumhouse after the company has logged a harder year than
usual at the box office. Blum was candid about where
the company stands, but his enthusiasm is absolutely undimmed. Matt Donnelly,
(02:57):
Senior Entertainment Writer, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I'm excited to talk to you about the quality time
that you spent with Jason Blum, the producer who graces
our cover and is getting our first ever Horror Impact Award.
It's impossible not to notice the impact that horror films
and content in that genre is having across the media spectrum.
And when we stepped back and think, okay, who has
(03:25):
done more to move the horror genre forward, to keep
it relevant and keep us always gasping and looking over
our shoulders, it is Jason Blum and Blumhouse set the
scene for us as you sat down.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Jason has a multi floor office complex in Koreatown, which
is a very bustling neighborhood in central Los Angeles. It's
not the typical place where Hollywood lays their hat. It's
not Beverly Hills or Century City with its skyscrapers, or
on a studio lot. And actually, as I was leaving
for the day, CIA's managing partner, Richard Lovett, was coming
(03:59):
in for lunch, and I was very impressed if you
could command someone as big as Richard to come all
the way to Koreatown for lunch in the middle of
the day. But I will say it's an incredible food
spot as well. Amazing amazing food seym where Jason is.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Just to buttress the point here, for Richard Lovett driving
from Century City the cadown, that's an hour commitment, especially
if you drove them.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So the Blumhouse office is not as much as a
shrine as you might think to their legacy. It's very modern,
but you do see little tokens here and there. There's
actually a full bust that was made by special effects
and hair and makeup crew of Jason where I think
it was used in one of his movies as sort
of like a random kill. They made a replica body
(04:38):
of Jason and they sort of slaughtered him along the way,
as often happens in Blumhouse movies. But it stares out
from behind the reception desks, so you definitely know it's
his office.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
As you get right into in the Q and A.
It's been a leaner twenty twenty five for them. They
usually have a number of at bats at Fox Office,
and this year their batting average is a grave. Jason
is enough of a pro to know that you're going
to talk about that. How did you find him when
you went into the tougher stuff that you were talking about.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Jason is pretty good at owning everything, and that includes
his successes. You know, Jason has a very elastic face,
so his smiles are very wide when those corners draw,
and you can tell when he's not happy about something.
But I think he's a very energetic guy. Like he
was wearing yoga pants and a beach T shirt when
I came in. He was very sort of realistic and
very awake to the fact that twenty twenty five has
(05:28):
not been the best. I think the Blumhouse particularly has
had four back to back missus at the box office.
Probably the most heartbreaking for him was a sequel to Megan.
His Ai Killer Doll movie in twenty twenty three, just
blew the doors off over two hundred million dollar worldwide
gross on a thirteen million dollar budget. This time around
this summer, she just didn't rise to the occasion. And
(05:50):
one of the most candid in parts of the interview too,
is that, you know, Jason has been around for a while.
Blumhouse turns fifteen this year, and I think he realizes
that the landscape is full of well, what do they say,
Cynthia's inspiration, imitation saturation. So it was a very crowded
year this year with horror films, most of them Jason's,
and only two seem to have really worked, which was
Ryan Kugler Sinners at Warner Brothers and also Zach Creger's
(06:13):
Weapons at Warner Brothers, which just really captured the zeitgeist.
Both of the in the awards conversation. But sadly, you know,
when the market is so oversaturated, I think audience attention
gets divided and some people get left behind. But he's
as tenacious as ever he's back to the drawing board
figuring out how they can recover and sustain.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
You can legitimately say he's somewhat of a victim of
his own success. Going on fifteen years ago. He pioneered
a low budget, big return model that has been very
successful for them. And you know, just the tenacity that
he shows in that Q and a sure Megan to
point out in work. But if anybody thinks that Megan
is going to be gone forever, you do not know
(06:54):
Jason Blum. And of course we're giving him an award,
and a few weeks after we announced ours, the Producer's
Guild of America decided that they were also going to
recognize him.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The other thing that really struck me is that Jason
still finds a lot of joy in what he does.
You know, I think that in our town, success equates
to more pressure, and it harkens back to Jason's philosophers
about making movies. He keeps his budgets as small as
possible to give his creatives as much freedom. A few
days after we sat for our interview, he flew to
(07:26):
a place called Estes Park in Colorado to the Stanley Hotel,
which was actually the inspiration for the Lodge in the
Shining where he broke round on what will eventually become
a Blumhouse museum dedicated to artifacts from Harborvies. This is
a guy who's still having so much unadulterated joy with
his work.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
What I loved about the Q and A and that
it just comes so clear that he was gunning for
He wanted the rights to remake the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
did not get them, but he says, I'm still going
after it. I'll see the next movie and I'll still
go after it again. He has that kind of tenacity.
There is a big horror property in his sites.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Blumhouse, in its history, has done one significant business transaction,
and that was to merge with James Wand's company Atomic Monster. James,
of course, was the original director of the movie Saw,
which has spawned ten theatrical movies via Lionsgate. Huge property.
So now Blumhouse the saut frenchise, They're going to jump
(08:26):
back into that world and bring us back more horrifying,
try to stay alive, pot boiling games. He seems really
really excited by the prospect.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Well, I'll be honest with you, Matt, that's probably not
something I'm going to see, but I have not forgotten.
One of my favorite Blum productions is the twenty fifteen
documentary How To Dance in Ohio is HBO documentary. It
is an amazing story of youth on the autism spectrum
going through that awkward social process, and it's just beautifully rendered.
(08:58):
Jason Blum contains multi tudes. I really appreciate you, Matt,
sitting with him and taking the measure of a really
important and influential person in our business. Now we'll hear
from William Earl, Variety's executive Digital director. Bill knows more
about horror in all its permutations, and I mean all
(09:20):
of them, than anyone I know, so he was the
perfect person to assemble our first ever Horror Impact List.
William Earle, thank you for joining me. Thanks for having
me by day. You are Variety's executive Digital director. In
the last couple of years you have gainly taken on
also being our resident horror expert. You know more about
(09:43):
the pockets of horror in different parts of the world.
Let me ask you, what is it about the horror
creative community in Hollywood? What characterizes this group of folks?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I think is so interesting about the horror community is
unlike other genres that people like to turn on when
they go home, like a rom com or something like that,
horror can really be a lifestyle for a lot of
these creators or journalists that are covering the scene. So
so many horror fans love the fact that it's about storytelling. First.
(10:19):
You can sell a horror movie without a big star
as long as you have a creative concept. Sometimes you
don't even need a lot of money. I've covered movies
for Variety that have been big hits that have cost
literally eight hundred dollars two thousand dollars, and they're just
made by scrappy people who really love to get scared
and scare people. So I think the creativity mixed with
(10:41):
the let's make something cool spirit of the creators.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Are there in your experience? Are there particular skills that
a person, whether you're a director or a writer, or
an actor or a cinematographer, any common threads that you
find in folks that work in horror.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
I find that so many really fantastic indie directors and
people who are putting great stuff up on the screen.
They're not forgetting character. They're putting characters on the screen
that you may have met, or if you're watching great
movies coming out of other countries, people that you haven't
met in other cultures, but the things that scare them
(11:19):
are similar to you and I, and I think that,
along with so many storytellers want to share a message.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Art is a process of helping us interpret our lives,
no question, and horror is definitely part of this. So
you did the heavy lifting with a number of other
editors and assembled one of our impact lists, where we
look at a particular sector and look at who's really
doing groundbreaking moving the ball forward work in this space.
(11:48):
You came up with thirty people, and it's a great
list because you have folks that you would expect, filmmakers
like Nia da Costa, Zach Kreger who had such an
impact with weapons, Ryan Kugler who really blazed a fresh
trail with sinners this year. But you also have people
like other journalists. You also have a couple that call
themselves dead Meat that they are the host of a
(12:10):
YouTube channel and a podcast. You also have film festival
directors here. You really went deep. Where did you start
to figure out okay, of all the potential people that
could be on this list. Where do I start just
to narrow to the thirty people that you really feel matter.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
That process was very exciting, and I spoke with a
lot of people in the industry who were adjacent to
this list, publicists who really work on horror movies expressly
to different directors, different creators, different journalists to get ideas.
One thing I love about this scene is everyone seems
very committed to lifting up the great stuff. And sure
(12:51):
we all whisper once in a while if there's a stinker,
but it really is about lifting creators up and getting
excited for finding those treasures, finding those creatives and elevating them.
Be it on. You know, Dead Meat has a massive
audience on YouTube and through their podcasts today are no
(13:12):
brainers for front facing horror fans that see their stuff often.
And then, of course, beyond the directors, you have the
producers like Roy Lee is such a great example of
while horror fans might not know his name, he has
been involved with just about every horror movie that's major
since The Ring came out.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I just love that variety is a collection of people
that have such passionate fandom. When you get us all together. Ooh,
it's intense, but again, no better guide, no better expert,
So listeners. If you need some chills and frights, head
right to our issue, which is in print today. It's
also online. William, thank you for doing all the heavy lifting.
(14:00):
As we close out today's episode, here's a few things
we're watching for I Love La, the new comedy series
from Rachel Sennett. Looks fun. The trailer is out today.
The show Premierre's November two Variety is producing a digital
daily today at the View Conference in Torino, Italy. The
event focuses on the state of the art in visual
(14:21):
effects and we're getting ready for our ten artisans to
watch lists that will be released in connection with the
Savannah Film Festival later this month. Before we go, congrats
to Sally Habershaw. She's been tapped to head the distribution
division of Media One. The division has moved from France
to London. Habershaw previously headed sales for all three Media International.
(14:45):
Thanks for listening. This episode was written and reported by
me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from Matt Donnelly and William Earle.
Stick Snick's hick Picks. Please leave us a review at
the podcast platform of your choice, and please tune in
tomorrow for another episode of Daily Variety.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Cynthia, what's your favorite scary movie?
Speaker 1 (15:05):
I saw both The Shining and A Clockwork Orange way
too young, and I saw them both in South Pasadena
the Dearly Departed Reality Theater. I had no idea what
was coming.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
The first movie I ever snuck into was Scream when
I was about eleven years old, and I got what
I deserve because I didn't sleep for about a week.