Big Bada Blum

HALLOWEEN I Über-producer Jason Blum updates Teasers on his future projects…

With Get Out and Split both doing boffo business, Blumhouse Productions is having a bloomin’ brilliant 2017. But that’s nothing compared to the genre peddler’s future plans. To chat all things spooky, we caught up with head honcho Jason Blum. First on the agenda: Danny McBride and David Gordon Green’s Halloween reboot…

HALLOWEEN

“I am a big believer that if you’re a good filmmaker, you’re a good filmmaker, no matter what genre. Danny and David fall into that. So we met with them for Halloween. They had a great take. John Carpenter blessed it. It was very important to me that John Carpenter remained a part of it, and he was excited about them. We’re going to shoot it in the fall.

“It’s daunting, but that’s what’s fun about it. And also, expectations are all over the place. Are they going to mess it up? I like that challenge. We’re going to try to put the company’s DNA into Halloween – which is that it feels unique, that the performances are great, that the actors are unexpected. And, most of all, get behind David, who is a great, original, extremely talented filmmaker.”

THE PURGE

“I’ve just got the script for the fourth movie. And then we’re doing a television series. The [writer’s] room is in New York. James [DeMonaco, creator] is involved in both. That’s a new experiment, to take a movie franchise that’s expanding and then drop the TV series at the same time. So we’ll see if the world is ready for that. They take place at all different time periods, but they take place within the same world, so there’ll be Easter eggs from one to the other.”

GLASS

“Night is incredibly secretive, and if I reveal anything about anything he’ll cut my foot off. But I do think Night had this whole Unbreakable universe somehow built in his brain for years. I have not read the script. I have to go to Philadelphia and sit in a room and he’ll be over my shoulder when I read it. All I know is I’m excited to be working on it with him.”

INSIDIOUS 4

“I don’t feel like there should be eight Insidious movies, but I felt Insidious 3 underperformed, and I thought the third movie had a lot more mythology to build on, so that made me think we should keep going. The reason I thought we were done with Paranormal Activity is it felt so repetitive. That’s when it’s time to quit.”

GET OUT 2

“Who would have guessed [Jordan Peele’s] true love is genre? I think that’s where he’s going to remain for the near future. He has a deal with us, and he’s doing some more low-budget thrillers, which we’re going to produce with him. We’ve talked about them generally as trying to make more movies with social themes, like Get Out. But what themes he’s going

to tackle, I don’t know.”

ETA | 19 OCTOBER 2018 / HALLOWEEN OPENS NEXT YEAR. GET OUT IS RELEASED ON DVD AND BLU-RAY ON 24 JULY.