Producer Jason Blum Says Hollywood Strikes ‘Did a Lot of Damage’

(Bloomberg) — Horror film producer Jason Blum said the twin strikes by Hollywood writers and actors last year “did a lot of damage” to the business.
“What they really did is they just made the pie smaller,” Blum said Thursday on a special edition of Sean Evans’ YouTube show Hot Ones. Even if some people got paid more, there are fewer people working, he said.
That added to the pain inflicted by the pandemic, particularly for cinemas.
“It’s really took the wind out the theatrical business,” Blum said at a taping of the online program at the Bloomberg Screentime conference. “I think it will come back.”
Blum, 55, is the founder of Blumhouse Productions, which specializes in small-budget horror films. It recently merged with Atomic Monster, another independent producer.
Blumhouse scored its first major success in 2007 with Paranormal Activity, which cost $15,000 to make and produced close to $200 million in global ticket sales. In 2014, the Los Angeles-based company signed a 10-year first-look deal with Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures. 
Blum has also produced films including Insidious, Sinister, The Purge, Whiplash, Get Out, The Invisible Man, The Black Phone, M3GAN, and Five Nights at Freddy’s. 
In 2025, Blumhouse’s company will release a record nine films, including the sequels M3GAN 2.0, The Black Phone 2 and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. 
The merger with James Wan’s Atomic Monster has presented challenges, Blum said, because the two companies have different approaches to making films.
“Next year we’ll prove if we are right or we were wrong,” he said.
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