I'm a big believer in creating parameters for creativity. I think parameters make people more creative. So that starts with my budgets. I only do low budget movies, and I think that makes the movies better.
— Jason Blum
When there's a great horror movie, people are like, 'Horror's back!' And when there's a series of not so good ones, 'Horror's dead.' I think it's all about the quality. When there are one or two good horror movies in a row, people come out interested again.
I think because Skype is becoming so much more prevalent, and you're looking at someone else on a screen, it's going to work its way into movies and TV shows in all different ways, which I think is really cool.
I think being snobby about the kind of storytelling people do, it just irks me. It irks me. And in fact, it's one of the things that drives me to make as many horror movies as I do.
I think the location is almost as important as casting the leads of the movie. The location on 'The Purge' was crucial to that movie working.
My easiest judgment for a script is 'do I want to keep reading it?'
I never wanted to get paid by the hour. If I was going to do more work than another guy, I wanted to get paid more.
There are so many factors that go into having a successful movie.. too many that you can't control.
It's really hard to make an original movie of any kind that succeeds in the theatrical market place, in the wide release market place.
I'm proud of 'Sinister' because Scott and Cargill did a great job on the movie, and I set up a framework for them to make what they wanted to make. They gave me the idea, and I figured out how to get it out into the world.
I try not to put pressure on filmmakers to come up with a big scare at the beginning. I think that helps let the audience settle in and get to know the people they're about to spend 90 minutes with. Once the scarier stuff happens, it's scarier because of that.
I love musicals. I love horror movies and I love art movies.
I love Hitchcock movies. I took a Hitchcock class in college, so I saw all his movies. I wrote papers on his movies.
The minute I was told what to do at any age, I did the opposite. Hopefully I'll do that for the rest of my life.
I found that a lot of people ridiculed contemporary art. I decided I wanted to be involved in art everybody could understand.
Occasionally I'll be a producer for hire on a larger budget movie, but with Blumhouse Pictures, we mainly focus on micro-budget, under-$5-million-dollar movies. That's what we're in business to do, and that's what we're in business to make.
I read an interview where someone said, 'It's a shame that anyone can make a movie now,' and I feel the exact opposite.
The one thing I am very strict about is that I don't like spending a lot of money on movies because the more money you spend, I think the worse that they get.
For some reason, people value being scared less than they value laughing.
Ethan Hawke is not a horror movie fan, but he's a really good friend of mine, and I finally cajoled him into doing 'Sinister.' Later, he said one of the reasons he was really resistant to doing a horror movie is he thought it'd be really scary on set.
YouTube is found footage. It's here to stay, and people will always come up with new concepts that will make sense for found footage.
There are a lot of parallels between doing a sequel and doing low budget movies, which is they give creative parameters. As a creative person myself, I work better with parameters as opposed to anything goes.
