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Jason Blum
American film producer (born 1969) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Jason Ferus Blum (/blʌm/;[1] born February 20, 1969) is an American producer. He is the founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, best known for horror franchises including Paranormal Activity (2007–2021), Insidious (2010–2023), The Purge (2013–2021), and Halloween (2018–2022).
Other Blumhouse films include Sinister (2012), Oculus (2013), Whiplash (2014), The Gallows (2015), The Gift (2015), Hush (2016), Split (2016), Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016), Get Out (2017), Happy Death Day (2017), Upgrade (2018), BlacKkKlansman (2018), Us (2019), The Invisible Man (2020), Freaky (2020), The Black Phone (2021), M3GAN (2022), Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), and Speak No Evil (2024).
Blum received Academy Award for Best Picture nominations for Whiplash, Get Out, and BlacKkKlansman. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie for the drama film The Normal Heart (2014) and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series for the documentary miniseries The Jinx (2015). He also received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Musical for Death Becomes Her (2024).
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Early life
Jason Ferus Blum[2] was born in Los Angeles[3] on February 20, 1969,[4] the son of art professor Shirley Neilsen Blum (née Neilsen) and independent art dealer Irving Blum. His father served as director of the Ferus Gallery.[5][6] He is of Jewish descent.[7][8] He graduated from New York's Vassar College in 1991.[9] He was a roommate of future filmmaker Noah Baumbach during his time there, and later produced Baumbach's first film Kicking and Screaming (1995).[10][11]
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Career
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Blum found work as an executive for Bob and Harvey Weinstein at their production company Miramax, and later as an independent producer for Paramount Pictures. Prior to his tenure at Miramax, he was a producing director at the Malaparte theater company in New York.[12] He is a member of the board of trustees of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.[13] He obtained financing for his first film as producer, Kicking and Screaming (1995), after asking family friend Steve Martin to read the script and write a letter endorsing it if he enjoyed it.[14] After Martin obliged, Blum replaced the title page of the script with copies of Martin's letter before he sent the script to Hollywood executives.[14]
In 2000, Blum founded Blumhouse Productions, which is known for producing micro-budget films that give directors full creative control.[12] Bloomberg News praised him for making "blockbusters for pennies",[15] the first example of which came with the horror film Paranormal Activity (2007), which became one of the most profitable films of all time as it grossed nearly $200 million on a $15,000 budget.[16] In addition, Planet Money released a special podcast episode about the company's methods, referring to Blum as the "business genius behind Get Out".[17]
Blum also produced Insidious (2010), Sinister (2012), The Purge (2013) and Happy Death Day (2017), as well as their sequels.[18] In 2014, he served as executive producer for the television film The Normal Heart, which went on to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie. In 2015, he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series for HBO's The Jinx.[19] BlacKkKlansman, Whiplash, and Get Out, all produced by Blum, were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.[20]
In 2018, Blum said in an interview that the reason no woman had ever directed a Blumhouse horror film was that "there are not a lot of female directors [...] and even less who are inclined to do horror", but said that he hoped to one day achieve this goal.[21] After much criticism on social media, in which lists of such directors were widely circulated,[22] he apologized for what he called his "dumb comments".[23] Sophia Takal co-wrote and directed the Blumhouse horror remake Black Christmas (2019), the studio's first theatrically released film by a female director.[24][25]
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Other ventures
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Politics
In June 2018, Blum told Variety that his upcoming prequel The First Purge would deal with racial tensions in the U.S. and said that all of the films in The Purge franchise have a political slant, giving examples such as the first film primarily being a parable about gun control and the third film addressing class warfare.[26] He said, "[Horror] reaches an audience in which politics may not be front of mind and it makes politics front of mind. The Purge reaches an audience that isn't thinking of gun control every day and might start thinking of gun control. If every time there's a shooting in the United States, the government's answer is put more guns in people's hands, then what The Purge is showing doesn't seem all that crazy. Donald Trump keeps saying 'give teachers guns'. I could see him saying 'let people shoot whoever they want to for 12 hours a year'."[26]
In November 2018, Blum (who is of Jewish heritage) attended the Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles to accept an award for Achievement in Film and Television.[7][8] In his acceptance speech, he said, "A lot is on the line [in the midterms]. The last two years have been hard for all of us who cherish the freedom as citizens of this country. The great thing about this country is that you can like Trump, but I don't have to, and I can say what I feel about it—and I don't like it."[7][8] He was heavily booed, to which he responded, "As you can see from this auditorium, it's the end of civil discourse. We have a president who calls the press the enemy of the people. Thanks to our president, antisemitism is on the rise."[7][8] Yossi Dina tried unsuccessfully to pull Blum off the stage.[7][8] Blum later tweeted the full speech, which said in part, "Nationalism is surging. Dog whistle politics are rampant and antisemitism is on the rise in ways my generation never thought imaginable."[7][8] He received support from fellow Jews such as Judd Apatow and Jamie Lee Curtis,[7][8] whilst festival director Meir Fenigstein stated that the audience "greatly lacked respect" and "turned an evening of celebration and recognition into something else" by booing him.[7][8]
Business
On August 14, 2020, Daily Front Row listed Blum as one of a group of high-profile investors who purchased failing fashion magazine W.[27]
After appearing on an episode of Shark Tank, Blum made a deal with American Immersion Theater, the leading immersive theater company in the U.S.[28]
Blum sits on the boards of the Public Theater in New York, the Sundance Institute, Vassar College, and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
Charity
In 2022, Blum donated $10 million to Vassar College, which was noted as the largest gift ever given to the college from a male alumnus.[29]
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Personal life
Blum married journalist Lauren A. E. Schuker in Los Angeles on July 14, 2012.[5] They currently reside in a townhouse in Brooklyn Heights, which he purchased for $9.8 million in 2019.[30]
Filmography
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Film
Universal Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Lionsgate Films
Focus Features
Sony Pictures Releasing
Netflix
Amazon MGM Studios
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Executive producer
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Producer
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FilmDistrict
The Weinsteins
Other
Producer
Executive producer
- One Way Out (1996)
- Graduation (2007)
- The FP (2011)
- Oculus (2013)
- Exeter (2015)
- Fifteen (2015) (Short film)
- Stockholm (2018)
- The Vigil (2019)
- Pharma Bro (2021) (Documentary)
- Exposure (2022)
- Soft & Quiet (2022)
Actor
- Unknown Dimension: The Story of Paranormal Activity (2021) (Documentary film, himself)[31]
Television
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Awards and nominations
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References
External links
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