{"id":1053,"date":"2026-05-30T21:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T21:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2026-05-30T21:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T21:37:00","slug":"jason-blum-and-james-wan-open-produced-by-conference-comparing-the-low-budget-horror-boom-to-edgy-movies-with-a-70s-vibe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1053","title":{"rendered":"Jason Blum and James Wan Open Produced By Conference Comparing the Low-Budget Horror Boom to \u2018Edgy Movies\u2019 With a \u201970s Vibe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tProducers Jason Blum and James Wan opened the Produced By conference on Saturday with a declaration that the film business is strongly rebounding from the post-COVID doldrums. The pair spoke with enthusiasm as their Blumhouse-Atomic Monster studio is riding high on the success of two buzzy box office hits \u2014 Focus Features\u2019 \u201cObsession\u201d and A24\u2019s \u201cBackrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cTo me there\u2019s almost this feeling of the \u201970s of like this new generation of young people who are making edgy movies that are connecting in theaters in a crazy way,\u201d Blum said in the opening session of Produced By, hosted by the Producers Guild of America on the Universal Studios lot. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo many young people who didn\u2019t grow up in a time when you couldn\u2019t go to the movies and they haven\u2019t had something for them to get off their iPad and go see the movie. Suddenly they have two movies,\u201d Blum said. \u201d \u2018Obsession\u2019 this weekend went up 20% from last weekend. Last weekend it went up 30%.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWan declared flatly that \u201cthe horror genre keeps saving our industry\u201d in the discussion moderated by PGA president Stephanie Allain.<\/p>\n

\n\tBlum asserted that \u201cObsession,\u201d made on a budget of $750,000, is now the highest-grossing film released domestically by Universal\u2019s Focus Features specialty label.<\/p>\n

\n\tBlum and Wan cited the excitement around new talent emerging from the grassrootes of social media and YouTube, such as \u201cObsession\u201d helmer Curry Barker and \u201cBackrooms\u201d director Kane Parsons. Blum pointed out the perhaps not unexpected irony of creatives raised on small screens yearning to see their work on the biggest of stages.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s f\u2014\u2013g hope in the movie business, and it\u2019s exciting, and it\u2019s great. The generation of people, like everyone\u2019s on Instagram, and everyone\u2019s on social media \u2014 the stars of the internet, they want to make movies, and that\u2019s great, great for all of us,\u201d Blum said. <\/p>\n

\n\tWan put a fine point on it. \u201cThey want to make movies for the big screen,\u201d Wan said. \u201cThey join on the internet on platforms like TikTok and YouTube, but in the end of the day, they\u2019re storytellers. They want to make things for the big screen. This young generation, Gen Z, they really do want to go back to the theaters.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tBlum added, \u201cAnd they\u2019re making something we haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d citing \u201cBackrooms,\u201d which builds on the horror found in liminal spaces. \u201cIt\u2019s the greatest, but the strangest movie ever, and the idea that it may be the biggest original horror opening of all time, is really, really great for everybody in this room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWan offered a little more backstory on how \u201cBackrooms\u201d came together earlier this decade when Wan reached out to Parsons who was 16 at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou just come across things that, as a filmmaker, you look at something and you go, There\u2019s a seed of something really cool about this, even if it\u2019s not viral, but if there\u2019s something special about it, you go, I think the creator of this particular content has what it takes,\u201d Wan said. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat was kind of what happened with us at Atomic Monster early on, like four or five years back, when we came across the viral shorts called \u2018Backrooms,\u2019 and we\u2019re like, you know what, this is awesome, we should talk to this guy [Parsons]. He was 16 years old, and on our first Zoom with him, his dad needed to be on the Zoom with him. We wanted to make sure we had permission from the father, and we just sort of worked with him. We talked to him. He\u2019s a really smart kid, really brilliant. His maturity is way beyond his years.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tWan and Atomic Monster weren\u2019t the only ones chasing Parsons. Filmmaker Shawn Levy was also in the hunt. He\u2019s an exec producer on the film, which opened this weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere were a lot of people going after Kane, and I think Kane was torn, because he really like the two of us, and we just said \u2018We\u2019re friends with [Levy\u2019s] 21 Laps. Let\u2019s work together on this.\u2019 And that\u2019s basically what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBlum noted how much the job of assembling movies has changed in recent years. \u201cOne of my favorite things about producing is that the job just always changes. Our job 20 years ago our job today is totally different, but one of the things that I think is the strength of our company is taking the understanding of how to harness the talent of these new generation of creators and turn it into theatrical movies, which is, which is complicated. But that\u2019s our new mission right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n(Pictured: Blumhouse-Atomic Monsters\u2019 James Wan and Jason Blum)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Producers Jason Blum and James Wan opened the Produced By conference Saturday with a declaration that the film business is strongly on the rebound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1054,18,1055],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-jason-blum","tag-obsession","tag-produced-by"],"yoast_head":"\nJason Blum and James Wan Open Produced By Conference Comparing the Low-Budget Horror Boom to \u2018Edgy Movies\u2019 With a \u201970s Vibe - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1053\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jason Blum and James Wan Open Produced By Conference Comparing the Low-Budget Horror Boom to \u2018Edgy Movies\u2019 With a \u201970s Vibe - 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