Blum sorry for dismissing female horror directors

Halloween producer Jason Blum is apologising for comments he made about his company’s failure to hire female directors for its signature horror genre in an interview.

Blum seemed “jolted” when asked about Blumhouse Productions’ failure to hire any female directors since its creation in 2006. “We’re always trying to [do] that,” Blum said. “We’re not trying to do it because of recent events.”

The producer then called an assistant to try to help him remember the name of another woman he said he’d met with “a bunch of times” on a movie the company is working on with Sony Pictures. No luck there.

People on social media were quick to criticise. “Thank you everyone for calling me out on my dumb comments in that interview. I made a stupid mistake,” the producer tweeted. “[W]e have not done a good enough job working with female directors and it is not because they don’t exist. I will do better.”