Biography

Jason Blum

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Overview

Born
February 20, 1969 · Los Angeles, California, USA
Birth name
Jason Ferus Blum
Height
6′ 2″ (1.88 m)

Biography

Emmy-winning producer, Jason Blum is the founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, a multi-media production company that has pioneered a new model of studio filmmaking- producing high-quality micro-budget films. Blumhouse has a first-look deal with Universal Pictures and has produced the highly-profitable Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Insidious, and Sinister franchises which have grossed more than $1.2 billion worldwide on combined budgets under $40 million. Blumhouse's model began with the original Paranormal Activity, which was made for $15,000 and grossed close to $200 million worldwide, making it the most profitable film in Hollywood history.

Blumhouse's award-winning projects include The Normal Heart and Whiplash. BH Tilt is a new label from the company dedicated to movies from Blumhouse and other filmmakers that will be released across multiple-platforms taking advantage of new distribution strategies.

In television, Blum won an Emmy for producing HBO's The Normal Heart. Blumhouse's shows include Ascension (Syfy), Eye Candy (MTV), and South of Hell (WEtv) and the division's development slate includes Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects with eOne and an unscripted show with Mike Darnell. In addition to The Normal Heart, Blumhouse previously executive produced Stranded for Syfy and The River for ABC.

Blumhouse has also produced a variety of live events including The Blumhouse of Horrors, haunted house experience in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, The Purge: Fear the Night, a live event inspired by the backstory to the feature film and The Purge: Breakout, an immersive escape game experience.

Before Blumhouse, Blum served as co-head of the Acquisitions and Co-Productions department at Miramax Films in New York. At Miramax, he was instrumental in acquiring over 50 films including The Others, Smoke Signals, A Walk On the Moon and The House of Yes.

Blum has produced over 75 films and TV series throughout his career. His credits also include: The Reader, for which Kate Winslet won an Academy Award; Hysterical Blindness, starring Uma Thurman, which aired on HBO and garnered Thurman a Golden Globe Award; and Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke, Bill Murray, Sam Shepard and Kyle MacLachlan.

Blum began his career as the producing director of the Malaparte theater company, which was founded by Ethan Hawke.
- IMDb mini biography by: Blumhouse Productions
Jason Blum is an American film and television producer, studio executive, and the founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions - the powerhouse independent studio behind some of the most successful and influential horror films of the 21st century. Known for revolutionizing modern genre filmmaking with his low-budget, high-concept model, Blum has produced a long list of box office hits and award-winning films, from Paranormal Activity (2007) and Insidious (2010) to Get Out (2017), The Purge franchise, and Whiplash (2014).

Born in Los Angeles, California, Jason Ferus Blum was raised in an artistic household. His father, Irving Blum, was an influential art dealer and director of the Ferus Gallery, famous for launching the careers of artists such as Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha. His mother, Shirley Neilsen Blum, was an art historian and professor. Growing up surrounded by art and creative discussion shaped Blum's taste for innovative, risk-taking work. He graduated from Vassar College in 1991 with a degree in Drama and soon entered the film industry as a studio executive and producer.

Blum's early career included a stint at Miramax, where he served as an executive for the company's independent film division and worked under legendary producer Ethan Hawke on projects such as Before Sunrise (1995). He soon developed a reputation for his keen eye for talent and ability to recognize marketable, story-driven material. In 2000, he founded Blumhouse Productions, a company that would forever change the landscape of horror cinema.

Blumhouse became synonymous with high-concept, low-budget horror. Blum's business model - investing small amounts of money in films with strong ideas and giving directors creative freedom - produced extraordinary results. Paranormal Activity, made for just $15,000, grossed nearly $200 million worldwide and became a cultural phenomenon. The success of that film established Blumhouse as a major Hollywood force.

Following Paranormal Activity, Blum produced a string of hit franchises including Insidious, Sinister, and The Purge, all of which became commercially successful and critically influential. The Purge series, in particular, showcased Blum's willingness to support genre films with social and political commentary.

Blum's work with writer-director Jordan Peele on Get Out (2017) marked a turning point for both horror and mainstream cinema. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, earned Blum an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, and proved that horror could be both commercially viable and socially significant. Blumhouse has since produced a diverse slate of films, from BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Whiplash (2014) to Halloween (2018), M3GAN (2022), and The Invisible Man (2020).

In addition to film, Blum has expanded into television with acclaimed projects such as Sharp Objects (HBO), The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (HBO), and The Good Lord Bird (Showtime). His company has also been at the forefront of streaming productions, partnering with Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix to deliver bold, director-driven storytelling through anthology series and exclusive releases.

Blum's influence extends beyond producing. He is known for empowering filmmakers - particularly new and diverse voices - to take creative risks without studio interference. His philosophy emphasizes creative freedom, financial discipline, and the belief that storytelling trumps spectacle.

Over the years, Blum has received multiple Academy Award nominations and industry honors, including Emmy Awards and Peabody recognition for his television work. Under his leadership, Blumhouse has become a global brand and a case study in how to blend artistry, entrepreneurship, and genre entertainment.

Jason Blum remains one of the most successful and forward-thinking producers in Hollywood. His unique ability to merge business acumen with creative intuition has redefined how films are financed and produced, proving that great stories can come from small budgets - and that fear, when crafted intelligently, is universal.
- IMDb mini biography by: KoenWellins

Family

Spouse

Trademark

His business moto is making his films 3 millions and under

Trivia

He has clarified that his formula for making movies as cost-effectively as possible doesn't mean looking exclusively for low-budget scripts. Rather, he looks for scripts he likes and tries to find ways they can be done on a low budget.
His rules for making a cheap movie include: 1) Limit the number of speaking parts, because actors with lines get paid more than non-speaking extras; 2) Limit the number of locations (ideally just one); 3) Pay actors the legal minimum, offering a percentage of prospective profits as additional compensation; 4) Never break the budget by asking for more money ("don't buy your way out of a problem, but solve it creatively").
His three favorite films (as of 2022) are Citizen Kane, Goodfellas, and Moulin Rouge.
His paternal grandparents were Austrian Jewish immigrants. His mother has German, Swedish, English, and Irish ancestry.
Was friends with legendary independent producer Roger Corman, who cited Blum as someone who reminded him of himself.

Quotes

Success is always a surprise. Maybe I lose a little less sleep, but still I lose sleep. There's the movie itself obviously, there's marketing, there's the weather, current events. Everything can be right and then you have bad weather and you're suddenly in trouble. There are so many factors that go into having a successful movie.. too many that you can't control. I'm always thrilled and always surprised.
[on making horror films with an open ending] That I really discourage our filmmakers to do. On a micro-budget movie, I always tell them to make a great movie. If you make a great movie that succeeds, we'll figure out a sequel.
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. Sequels force you to work creatively so that you don't make a movie that people say, 'That was so original, why was that a sequel? That should have just been its own movie. It had nothing to do with the first movie'. You don't want them coming out saying, 'Well, that movie felt exactly like the first movie. Why did I waste $14.50 on that?'. I think that's fun. I really like the challenge of that.
We have a lot of data for everything, so it's not to say we don't give lots of notes on the script, lots of thoughts about casting and lots of thoughts about the cuts of the movies. But the directors are free to take what they think makes the movie better and not use what they think doesn't make it better. And surprise, surprise, when you give a director total control, they listen more, they solicit us more. The dialogue becomes healthier.
If I was giving someone $30 million to make a horror movie, I would want every decision to be looked over by many, many people. But if you keep budgets down, you can let James Wan do what he does, fast, and let him focus on making the movie he wants to make. And if he wants to do something that seems a little out of the ordinary, if the budget is low it's okay to let him do that.