The Bill Simmons Podcast - Jason Blum on Redefining Horror Films, Making Box Office Hits, and Storytelling Tricks (Ep. 271)

Episode Date: October 11, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by CEO of Blumhouse Productions Jason Blum to discuss the desire to make original movies (6:00), securing the rights to the 'Halloween' franchise (14:00), the origin story behind 'The Purge' (21:00), working with tech companies in Hollywood (30:00), buying the Amityville Horror house (35:00), the iconic 'Friday the 13th' franchise (41:00), 'The Gift' (45:00), the revival of M. Night Shyamalan (1:00:00), 'It' breaking box-office records (1:06:00), Jordan Peele's plea to protect 'Get Out' from spoilers (1:11:00), the problems with CGI (1:18:00), and the slew of upcoming projects at Blumhouse (1:24:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Go to letsplay2twofilm.com or projam.com for more details. Pro Jam is coming up in one second. This is a conversation we taped with a producer named Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions. Me, Sean Fennessy, and Jason, we talked on Friday for almost an hour and a half about horror movies and the business and everything. If you're a movie junkie, you're going to love this. It's really good. This guy has made 80% of the movies that I think my son has seen in the last five years. I'm a terrible father, as you're about to find out. But first, Pearl Jam.

Taping this on a Friday morning, Jason Bl blum is here sometimes called jason bloom but erroneously often erroneously but it's not and often called they often say bloom house it is blum house blum house for uh like bum house well that yeah kind of like that i was gonna go for plum but okay bum house yes i suppose the ringers editor-in-Chief Sean Fennessy also here. Hi, guys. We're going to talk movies. You're like my producer's soulmate. Are you 1969? 69, February 20. Yeah, we're almost exactly the same age. What are you? 1969.

What month? September. September, very close, yes, yes, yes. You have taken the, I guess, call it the horror genre? Horror, it's different these days. Kind of like- Thriller horror. Just scary movie, kind of like thriller horror.

Yeah, genre. I like to call it dark genre is one of my favorite ways to describe it. Dark genre. You've turned it into a business that is extremely successful and has revolutionized the Hollywood model. I know Sean is impressed. We wrote about it when? November? Chris Ryan wrote about it? Chris Ryan wrote about it?

Chris Ryan wrote about it. I'm more than impressed. Yeah, terrific. That was a terrific piece. How'd you do it? Explain it to us, man. Well, how did we do it? So let's see.

I started, I always wanted to be in movies. And I worked for the first kind of 15 years of my career in independent movies. And- We're doing Kicking and Screaming later. I didn't want to leave the podcast with it, but- worked for the first kind of 15 years of my career in independent movies and uh we're we're we're doing kicking and screaming later i don't want to leave the podcast with it but okay so we'll do okay okay we'll get we'll get into that don't think that's not coming okay okay fine fine fine don't think that's gonna happen for about 15 minutes but i want to put that near the end i can't wait and i know some people can click off at that point good yeah so anyway i spent 15 years

doing independent movies i worked uh at a little company called Arrow. I worked for Miramax. I produced a bunch of independent movies on my own. I produced about 10 independent movies on my own after I quit being an executive when I was 30. I moved out to LA in 2000 and was a little producer. And no, movies were really bad and no one saw them, which those two things generally go together. So how are you paying rent? That's a great question.

So I had one year, I had my office in my house. I lived in the El Royale. Yeah. I had my office. The El Royale. Yeah. And I had a little two-bedroom apartment there. And I had my office in the second bedroom.

And there was one year I was kind of on a corporate ladder. I was making like 50 and then 80. And then I was making $120,000 a year, which when you're 29 in 1998, that was good money. And it's good money now. And then I quit that job and started working on my own. And the lowest I made when I was 31 or 32 was $37,000 a year. $37,000 for the year, which was shocking because it was so much less than I had made before. And I had to cover my own stuff. But I had my assistant who would come over to my – for a while, I didn't have an assistant. Then I paid someone, this guy named Oliver Kramer.

I paid him $100 a day. And he'd come over to my apartment. And we used to make jokes. We should call the company Underwear Productions because I'd be sitting, I'd get up out of bed, roll out of bed, I'd sit at my desk. It's a gross image. And I'd be me and Oliver. Oliver was dressed. I was in my underpants working like in a tiny, tiny room with the two desks together. I used to drive my own scripts around. And anyway, I made a bunch of independent movies. Were they your scripts or just scripts that other people had that you liked that you felt like you could turn into something?

I was giving a class a couple of weeks ago. I was talking to a bunch of kids at USC about this. They were scripts. They were just scripts. I was very mercenary. They were scripts that I thought I could get made. Right. So it wasn't like scripts that I necessarily loved.

I was talking about that. I just read this book called Ego is the Enemy. Have you read this book? Have you heard about this book? It's an interesting book. And one of the big theses of the author of the book is that we talk about passion too much. passion is not necessarily the, you always say, how are people successful by being passionate? And that passion is not necessarily the answer to success. And there's part of that that I agree with. It wasn't scripts that I was passionate about. It was scripts that I was like, okay,

I got this actress in it or this person in it or scripts that I thought I could get made. So what's the best example of that? Like from that era? Okay, well, we made 10 of them. So nine of them you probably never heard of. And the only good one, I could say it that way, was we made a movie called Hysterical Blindness.

Remember that? Uma Thurman won the Golden Globe. But that was the only one that was any good. But the example is that Hysterical Blindness was a play. And I was very good friends with Ethan Anuma. And she saw this play and it was about a not attractive girl who couldn't get a date.

And of course, the most attractive woman in the world wanted to play that part. And of course, her representatives and all the business people in her life said, you're crazy. So I was lucky enough as the kind of young buck friend to get the opportunity. She said, you know, no, I think she didn't say it quite like this, but basically it's like, no one's really listening to me. Could

you help me get this made? And she gave me this play, which I didn't really have any connection to, but I had Uma Thurman. And I just, not that I didn't like it, but I could have certainly lived without making it. It was really her passion project. And I took that package and everyone said no, except HBO. And we got it made. But that was, in that one, that was a successful result. Who cited you taking the divorce? Boomer or Ethan? You had to pick.

Anytime friends get divorced, you got to pick. Of course, of course. Now you don't have to tell us friends get divorced you gotta of course of course now you have to tell us no i'll tell you absolutely yeah yeah it's it's a it's kind of it's kind of an interesting story i i was very proud of the fact that i lasted the longest of anyone i think this is true um straddling both while they were they got divorced but ultimately gotta pick it ultimately oh or it got picked and uh and i wound up with my friend in the beginning was ethan and and and i'm still close with ethan and that's the right move you gotta go i stuck with the one of them it was yeah you gotta go first yeah but wait i'm curious why you decided to leave your 120 000 your job as an executive to take a shot to do this by yourself and make no money.

That's a great question. My dad had his own business. And I always, when I think about, you know, I've made a million mistakes. But one of the bigger mistakes that I made was that decision. And I left too early. I was working for Miramax. It was the hype. Miramax was owned by Disney.

I was the king ofamax. It was the height. Miramax was owned by Disney. I was the king of the world in New York. I was working in New York, king of independent cinema because I was at the best company at doing it at that time. But I really always had a voice in me that I wanted to be my own boss, desperately, desperately. Sounds like me. I was going to say, I think someone can relate. Yeah, desperately. Very similar. Very someone can relate yeah desperately very similar very very similar and very similar yes so you you're doing this so that's why you're doing this right after

this unbelievable run of movies 96 to 2000 that we always talk about just like yeah it's just a phenomenal five-year stretch amazing like 99 is that what was the bet what did we say the best one what year was we said like 99 99 yeah that was the bet what did we say the best one what year was we said like 99 99 yeah that's the matrix it's like the glory days of just it was and and that was exactly my uh employment contract i was from 95 to 2000 i was at miramax and i was in the center the matrix was different because it was studio obviously but i was in the center of the independent film business as a child i was in my late 20s. I was in a job way, way over my head. Back when people actually went to go see him instead of just waiting for them to come on.

To be on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. It was an amazing, amazing run. Like I saw Kiki and Screamy in the theater. That would never happen today. Ever. It would be on Netflix and be like, what is this?

Oh, this looks cute. Yeah, never happened. Hey, Parker Posey. Yeah. And then you're clicking on it. That would never happen today. I really miss that era. I just feel like movies mattered more as an experience that was social for everybody.

It'll come back. It'll come back. I think it's less true now because of windowing. But I think windowing has made the 90 to 120 minute format a less relevant just like you're saying but i think when movies can play at the same time at home and in the theater i think i think movies will be more that format will be more relevant again now it's really moved to series series are what people do okay that's a good example of the old school model working it is which we we've had a few throwbacks to 90s successes, but they're few and far between.

How did you figure that out? How to get people in the theater up to this very day? Well, you mean how our kind of business model works? It's basically we do low budget movies. And the reason that we do low budget movies is everyone says they're profitable and they often are profitable, but that's not the reason we do.

We do low budget movies so we can do new different things. So when we make it, usually, not usually, every studio, when they make a decision to greenlight a movie, they have to use a system of comps. And by the way, if I ran a studio, I would do the exact same thing. If you're gonna spend $100 million on a movie, they have to use a system of comps. And by the way, if I ran a studio, I would do the exact same thing. If you're going to spend $100 million on a movie, you better have three movies that are like it in the last five years that made $100 million.

Otherwise, you shouldn't spend the money. But the great thing about doing low budget movies is you can greenlight movies in the exact opposite process. We have our people. You know, when people say, what do you say yes to? We the exact opposite process. We have our people, we, you know, what people say, what do you say yes to? We got to like it. That's easy. Everyone says that. I love the script. What does that mean? It's taste. But second, and much more importantly, and much more unique than that is it's got to, it's got to remind us of nothing. When we all read Get Out, the Monday of the thing, everyone liked it. We didn't think it was the greatest script ever. Everyone liked it, but everyone across it, I've never

read anything like this. And the reason I'm so psychotic about low budget is because we then get to say yes to Get Out. If Get Out, if the script of Get Out came to me and I was running a studio and it was a $20 million movie, never would have made it. That's true of almost every single film we've ever produced. I never would have made The Purge. I never would have made The Visit. I never would have made... every original movie that we do just doesn't make sense on paper. And so, so the kind of long answer to your question is I think one of the reasons we've had a bigger, a lot of success with our movies is that the audience and they, they wouldn't articulate this, but the movies do feel different and new.

We should point out that you've made basically every successful horror movie over the last six years. Well, I appreciate that. I wouldn't say everyone. It's this whole genre. We missed a few. We missed a few, but we've made a lot. It's like you're batting like 80%.

Don't think my nine and a half year old son hasn't watched all of them. I'm such a horrible parent. Really, I'm like the worst parent on the planet, but my kids love horror movies and they've loved them from the get go. My favorite movie, probably ever, second favorite movie other than 48 Hours is Halloween, which I can't even tell you how many times I've seen. But when my son was four, we took him to the Halloween house on Orange Grove off of Sunset and he put the mask on and he walked across the street. Yeah, my favorite psycho. I was there two weeks ago. Do you see the photo shoot we

just did from there? I was there two weeks ago. Thanks for the street. Yeah, my family's psycho. I was there two weeks ago. Did you see the photo shoot we just did from there? I was there two weeks ago. Thanks for the invite. No, no. It wasn't. There was no one invited. We did a photo shoot with Jamie Lee Curtis. Yeah.

And that was the new art for the new movie. She did get decapitated in Halloween, the resurrection. Yes. So we're going to pretend that didn't happen? Listen, hopefully you won't be disappointed on the new Halloween movie. Halloween H20 was good. Very. That was 20 years ago. Very.

Halloween H20 took the tactic of three through seven never happened. Didn't exist. Yeah. Yeah. We're just starting fresh from- I'll put it that way. I think that was a good tactic. I think you just pretend one, two, H20, and this one this is like the the spiritual fourth

one yeah exactly i think that's the move does that stuff matter to you you know you're you've now created a couple of franchises does like the logic of these movies matter or is it just make the best movie you can make no no no it matters incredibly it doesn't mean we always abide by it but we talk about it endlessly the one of the things i love is about half the movies we make are sequels and half the movies we make are originals. And you have to use totally, it's almost like the difference between television and movies. You have to use a totally different side of your brain with the sequels. Everything that I said about our business only applies to originals. It doesn't apply to sequels. So sequels are more expensive. They're not original. We were guaranteed a wide release.

The big component to our model is that on the movie side, we never guarantee a wide release until the movie's finished. And I don't ever want a wide release. I don't want to decide how the movies get released until the movie's finished. If you decide going in that you're going to go on 3,000 screens and $30 million, all the great pressure that's alleviated by having a low budget goes out the window. You want the directors to feel, the artists that are making these movies, to feel free and loose to take chances and not worry about what the TV spot is going to be, what the trailer is going to be. Just be free and make a great movie.

And then we figure out how the movie is going to be released. Sequels is the opposite. Have you been to the original Myers house in Pasadena? That's now a real estate place. I know, I know about it. I feel like you're qualified enough. I may not be. I think I should have made this movie.

Oh, I absolutely. Now listen, do you know where they got the original Myers mask? Tell me where. It was a Captain Kirk mask in like a convenience store or something that they used. And then they lost and they could never. That's why the original Halloween mask was always better than all the next masks.

I love it. Because it was like this doctored Captain Kirk mask. I love it. I love it. I love it. That's kind of the thing I bring to the table. We should switch. We should switch places, obviously.

You can bring me in for like one meeting. Okay. Just to make sure there's some continuity. I mean, Michael Byers did Burn in a Fire at the end of Halloween too right and he did I think

at Decapitate at the end of H12 but we can work you can work all this stuff through now what about what about what about David Gordon Green have you had him on

do you know him no he directed Stronger the Jake Gyllenhaal movie Stronger but he's done George Washington he's done great you would love him

he's amazing yes and you would is he the one who's doing Halloween yes he's directing it him. He's done great. You would love him. He's amazing. Yes. And you would- Is he the one who's doing Halloween? Yes. He's directing it. Him and Danny McBride wrote it. How involved is John Carpenter?

He's involved. It's kind of a good story. You want to hear the story? Yes, please. I would love to hear the story. So they came to me- Because he's the gatekeeper for all this. He wrote it.

He's not the gatekeeper. Who's the gatekeeper? Two companies, Miramax, who bought the rights, the distribution rights. Right, when they made H2O. And no, they've made a lot of Halloweens, Miramax, Dimension. But the real gatekeeper is a guy named Malik Akkad, whose company is called Tragus, and his dad. And what we always say, which is true, is we're all guests in Malik's house. There's a guy named Bill Block who runs Miramax, and he once said that.

And that's the perfect description of how the Halloween process works. And really, Malik and his family, obviously, are really the gatekeepers. They are the gatekeepers of Halloween. Okay. And the way that we got involved is we approached – or I don't know if we approached them or – but anyway, we all got together. I'm sure we probably approached them. We approached Malik and we approached Miramax. We said we'd love to be an additional guest at your house and see if we could help you get this going.

And we talked about it a long time. And we finally started to agree of what it would look like and how we would do that. And one of the things I said is the only thing about us being involved is I don't want to do it unless John Carpenter is, is, is involved in some way. That's the right instinct. He had no contractual anything. In other words, there was, we can make it, we could, we could be making this Halloween without him. And I said, I really think we should do him. And Malick and Miramax were both very amenable to that. And they said, you know what?

We tried. We approached him. And it didn't work out. And I said, well- He's probably still mad about the Rob Zombie two remakes in 2007. I don't acknowledge those, just in case you're wondering. Okay, good. Okay, good.

That was his interpretation of Halloween. I'm out on those. Too violent. Both of them? Yeah, too violent. It's like, what was going on there? That was that weird Saw era of horror movies when it just got super dark and grisly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't like those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to be scared. I don't want to be like grossed out. I don't love those either. There are some movies that are just super, but so bloody. It's like almost like a joke.

Like I don't mind that. I always caught him like torture porn. Yeah, well, that's not good. I don't like that. Okay. So anyway, back to my John Carpenter story. So I said, can I try talking to him? And they said, sure.

And I got in touch with John through his agent or whatever. I didn't, I didn't know. I never met him. I actually had met him briefly, but we didn't know each other. And I had a meeting with him and I met him as he has a little Hollywood house here where his office is. And I met him, I remember the meeting was at three o'clock and that's becomes important in a second. And I started him. I remember the meeting was at three o'clock and that becomes important in a second. And, and I started, you know, saying, listen, I want to have me. This is crap. You don't need me. And you know, and I said, I said, I said, well, I, I told him the story I just told you. I said, I really didn't want to go for that. Well, what am I going to, I'm going to have nothing. I'm going to have no approvals. I'm going to have nothing. I'm going

to have nothing to do with it. This is bullshit. And I said, it isn't. I said, we don't know each other. I said, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. I have almost every filmmaker we've worked with, we've worked with multiple times. I really, our company's built on artists and you're the original person here. And I really, and he grouched at me again and I looked up at him and I really, and, and he grouched at me again. And I looked up at him and I said, John, I said, they're going to make a Halloween movie with or without you. And by the

way, with or without me, I said, I don't really want to do it without you. So both of us can, can pull up shop and go home, but, but it's still going to happen. And he kind of looked at me and then I said, no, you're not going to have approvals, but I'm looking you in the eye and I'm going to tell you that we're not going to make any big moves that you hate. You're a wild man. I said, if we do something you hate, you don't need to have contractual approval. You could go out and tweet, these guys are idiots and our show is is down and uh and he said all right and at 3 16 i walked out it was meeting was 60 minutes long and i called his agent and the agent said wow sure i mean i said yeah i said i have no idea i have no idea what happened and at 3 30

john carpenter agreed to executive produce halloween which i was so psyched about and that's the long answer to your question but the short answer is every time we do something, when we choose the director, every time a script comes in, any big creative things, John is super involved. So Danny McBride and David went over, pitched in the idea, which he liked. We've sent him multiple versions of the script, which he gives notes on. And he's, he's creatively actually very involved in the movie, which I'm very, which I'm very proud of. So even though I may be the wrong, even though I may,

may not, I may not have enough. You're not wrong. No, may not have enough to carry your torch. You can trust that John Carpenter does. Bill, do you think you would be better than John Carpenter at this?

No. John Carpenter's the guru. Okay. Yeah. He did the music. So it's, yeah. So we have that.

He created the, he created the whole thing. They were just like, kill some babysitters. He's like, cool, here's the guru. Yeah, he did the music. Yeah, so we have that. He created the whole thing. They were just like, kill some babysitters. He's like, cool, here's my script. And it's great. And Jamie Lee Curtis is great to have back. And Jamie Lee Curtis, she's also executive producing. And this opens the door, now that you're with Carpenter,

for the Escape from New York remake. Escape from New York remake that I've been waiting for for 35 years. Well, I have a few other John Carpenter things spinning around in my head, but I want to get this one off the ground. One of the 12 best ideas for a movie of all time. New York City has turned into a maximum security prison. The prisoners go in, they can't get out.

The president's plane crashes inside New York City. Somebody has to go get him, which is great. What's a better idea than that? How is that not a TV show? I don't know. That's a Netflix series. I feel like- I'm watching 13 episodes of that.

So many of your movies, though, do the same thing, where there's two sentences, and you're like, what the hell? How is that a movie? The Purge is that kind of a thing. The elevator pitch is incredible. I was so in love with the idea of The Purge. When I heard about it, I was like, oh, that's perfect. How does that come together?

You know where that idea came from? Who? James DeMonaco, who wrote and directed all three movies, lives on Staten Island, is a spectacular, incredibly talented guy and a good friend of mine. He and his wife are driving on some, they don't call them freeways in New York, some thruway in New York. Someone cut him off. And he's like, fuck, I don't want to kill that guy. Or maybe it was his wife was driving. Anyway, one of them said that.

And the other one said, what if you could? And that was the birth of The Purge. But you know, they're very, James is very, The Purge really, in a funny way, was kind of the first, Get Out was the real social thriller. But The Purge kind of laid there. The Purge is really a movie about, you know, gun control gone haywire in the United States. The Purge in France, the French translation of the title is America's Nightmare. That's what the movie's called.

That's America's Nightmare 1, 2, and 3. And in Europe and in other countries where they have a different relationship to guns, they really understand the purge 100% as a cautionary tale. In this country, about half the audience gets it as a cautionary tale, and the other half the audience thinks the purge may not be a bad idea,

which is a little disturbing. When I was at Grantland, Kevin Wilds used to do half-baked ideas. And I threw this half-baked idea at him once called Leap Year. Because every four years, there's this extra day. Yes, of course. So my theory was on that extra day, all laws should go out the window. And we did this whole thing. And it was really fun. And is it possible that I read that or saw that?

No, I don't think so. It's impossible. Three years later. We're going to make that movie. Three years later. No, when the purge thing came out, I was getting emails like, this is the leap year idea on acid. And I was like, the purge is a better idea than leap year. Leap year is something though. I always felt like, this is, the purge is a better idea than leap year.

Leap year is something though. I always felt like leap year is like, there was a comedy done about the year that there was no inheritance tax. Do you remember that? When George Bush was president or there was some year

where there was no inheritance tax for 12 months and it was all about like pushing grandma and grandpa off a cliff. Yes. There was a movie about that. It's kind of similar.

I barely remember that. There's another great Manhattan, the escape from New York idea. There's an amazing idea. You know, Andrew Nichol who did Gattaca and he has these great big ideas. We have nothing to do with this, but it's been around for a long time.

It's called City That Sails. And it's about a young child and his parents get divorced and one of them moves to the UK and one of them's in New York and he's living with the one in New York. And the love and the amount that he misses the parent who lives in the UK eventually cracks Manhattan off from its foundation and Manhattan sails slowly across Europe to join the child with his parent. Isn't that cool? That's a great idea. Will Smith had played with it for a long time. Isn't that a great idea? It's about a hundred. The budget of that movie would be more than all of our movies combined. But you must hear a thousand high concept ideas a day. Like,

how do you pick which ones make sense for a movie? We don't. You don't hear. It's high concept ideas. It's easy to say and easy to, but they're really, they're few and far between the idea, the purge or get out or they're, they're really, they're, they're, they're, they're hard. Otherwise, you know, you'd see more movies that are clean, high concepts and they're not, they're very, they're not that many movies that are clean, high concepts. They're hard to find that aren't goofy you don't i mean the

purge is one sentence i'm in one second i mean those are 12 hours a year right if you can explain a movie in one sentence isn't that what you want yeah it's a home run it's a home run but they're hard hard to come by true or false my son dressed up as a purge character for halloween two years i hope that's true it's a hundred percent true i love love it. So here's what happened. How old is he? Well, he's nine and a half. I mean, he's going to be in jail soon, so I don't mind talking about him. So this is when he was seven and a half. Yes. So he goes to school with Frank Grillo's son as one of his best friends. Oh my God, Frank. And Frank Grillo started making- Frank Grillo. Grillo, I'm sorry. And I knew that too. That's right.

His son's name is Rio Grillo. Oh, oh, yes. And you always want to call him Rio, but it's Rio Grillo. But either he was making Purge 2, or he had just finished Purge 2 or something. And my son found out about it.

He's like, dad, I got to see the Purge. Oh my gosh. Rio's dad is in Purge 2. We got to get it. Oh God. So we watched it and he thought it was like just magnificent.

The greatest thing ever. Oh my God. And then we got. I'm sorry about that. He had his, it was on somewhere. It was on like Netflix or one of those places. And we had to like pull his account.

Cause we found him watching it without telling us. But he actually really did ask me once, dad, do you think the Purge could actually happen? And my wife was like, listen, this has to stop. This has to stop now. We can't let him watch these movies, but he still watches them. The other, besides the incident on the thruway, the other, excuse me, kind of big thought,

that big kind of idea in the purge is, was, I mean, and, and obviously this is, you know, super sensitive now, but it is, it was very upsetting to me and a disturbing to James that oftentimes when they're shootings, the, the, there's a big contingent that thinks the answer is more guns. When there's a school shooting, the idea that you put a guard in a school with a gun is the answer to a school shooting is really upsetting. And I think that, that one reasons the Purge thought was like, if your answer to a school shooting is putting a guard in a school with a gun, then how far does this go? That's the cautionary tale part of it. Yeah.

Was Purge, it became a TV show now? So we're shooting the fourth Purge movie right now. We're filming it now. It comes out in July. And we're doing something that I don't think has been done before, which is we're doing a TV series at the same time. Yeah.

And so we've written all the episodes. I'm in. As part of an interconnected thing? You don't need to see one or the other, but there are little Easter eggs in both. So there's a little crossover between both. I'm waiting for the Purge NFL where it's just the end. It's one day where the NFL.

We've been watching it for years. Oh, wait. That's every day. That's already happened. Oh, that's every day. Did you read today? They said high school football is going way, way, attendance is going way down. There was a big article today about it.

I'm sure you guys know all about that. The football horror movie hasn't happened yet. That is the football. Well, it's happening in real life, but I guess so is going way down. There was a big article today about it. I'm sure you guys know all about that. The football horror movie hasn't happened yet. That is the football. Well, it's happening in real life, but I guess so is The Purge, so we should do it. Yeah. Yeah. So you rejuvenated this horror franchise, in my opinion. Sean, you agree with that?

There's been a lot of rejuvenation? I think reinvented the whole genre in a lot of ways, for sure. I mean, this is a great room. I'm going to spend the whole day in this room. Fantastic. The part of what's cool about these choices you're making with movies is that even if they don't go gangbusters in the theater they feel like they have this huge huge tail on the netflix and the hulu amazon world

you go to netflix and it's like hey here's hush and hush was just oh they pushed that for two months yeah hush was great i loved hush and then you watch hush and then you go back to netflix two days later and it's like you liked hush here are five other movies like it and then they're all glumhouse and yeah and it's just it never ends but you couldn't have known that was going to happen with the netflix recommendation thing no did you that i mean that's where you just you just you just like there's so much packed into what you just said, my head is going to explode. Okay, good. Okay, my head is going to explode.

Okay, how do you figure out what's a movie that goes in theaters and what's a movie that goes straight to streaming? Well, Hush is a great example of a movie that really should have gone in theaters. And the Hush should have been a wide release. And it wasn't a wide release because the market is so fickle. And at the time we sold Hush, there were three horror movies in a kind of three-month period that didn't do well. And as a result- What were the three?

Do you remember? I don't. I wish I could. One of them was probably The Gallows, which I thought was really good. We did that too. Yeah. I like The Gallows. I think-

I think there was a glut. I think that's what happened. I think there were too many. I think it was the summer of The Gallows. Yeah. So we had The Gallows was one- them so anyway there was there was there was and so it was just this moment you know and i was it was super frustrating to me and you know we sold it to netflix and every everyone did it did did all right on it netflix by far did the

best on it oh my god i would say that was like a hall of famer for Netflix. It was a hall of famer for Netflix. And then Netflix signed up Mike Flanagan to work for the rest of his life. Would have been nice if they gave us a call. They didn't, but you know what? We have other great business with that. He made three, four movies with you, right? Mike? Yeah. We made four movies with him and then, and then Hush did so well. You know, that's, that so well. That's a north and south. And I'm not saying this because I hate when you hear an interview like, oh, I have a great relationship with them. We sell Netflix a ton of material and we do have a very good relationship with them. That was to me, a, not a great part of the relationship. Uh, and that's a real, there's a, there's a whole nother

show you could do on the difference between, you know, the North and Northern and Southern California's approach to content. And that's kind of the studio would never do that. Like a studio, if you sold a studio, a movie, um, if we sell a studio, a movie, and the studio is going to get in business with the filmmaker there's the studio talks to the production company and you kind of you know it's just a known thing and and um and i think that's you know one of the culture differences and i think that's getting sorted out but uh but i was certainly i was very frustrated by that it was a very frustrating thing like you you we did so great on your movie. Thanks. See you later.

It spotted your talent. kicking and screaming wouldn't exist today. And those movies still do exist. So there is a lot to be said for the fact that independent film would pretty much be dead if it weren't. I'd rather see an independent. I'd rather that at least you get to see independent film at home on TV than not see it at all. And there would be no independent film if it weren't for streaming services. There just wouldn't. We'll be back with Jason and Sean in one second. First, a break to talk about the NBA, my favorite sport. After a blockbuster offseason, the NBA is back. The 2017-18 season tips off on TNT on Tuesday night, October 17th. Oh, my God, it's here.

An electrifying doubleheader that features friends, foes, familiar faces. First up, Kyrene Gordon-Hayward leading my beloved Boston Celtics to Cleveland. Boo! To battle LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and the Cavs. That's 7 p.m. Eastern. Right after that, we go to the West. James Harden, Chris Paul, new Houston Rockets teammates going to the Bay, taking on the defending champion Warriors. 10.30 Eastern.

I would say I like the Celtics and I like Golden State on a parlay. Celtics at Cavs, Rockets at Warriors. Coverage begins 7 p.m. Eastern, TNT. Listen, you don't have to just go to TNT. You can also go to the TNT app, which I highly recommend. Basketball is here. Oh, and by the way, let's talk about Miller Lite. Brewed not just to only taste great, but also be less filling.

It has only 96 calories, so it won't fill you up. It's brewed to be enjoyed from tip-off to final buzzer, and they have been an awesome partner for TheRinger.com. It is the original light beer and has been since they first showed up courtside in 1975. I may have a couple Miller Lite posters from the early 80s because they used to have this awesome ad campaign with some of my favorite athletes. Miller Lite. Not only it tastes great, it's also less filling. All right, back to Jason Blum. Here's what you've proven to me this decade. Any home invasion, if it's done correctly, is going to work. Home invasion or, hey, I'm going to go write my book in my cabin that's in a really remote

place. I'm going to so refute what you just said. Home invasion movies, they work. Everyone's afraid to have their home invaded. You sound like a Hollywood executive. No, home invasions work. No, they don't work. I should show you 900 home invasion movies that haven't worked.

I said they're done well. They're done well. You know what really works well? Yeah. I'm going to go to my cabin and work on this. There's really bad cell phone service here. That's why there's so many period horror movies, by the way, because you can get rid of the cell phones.

That's why every horror movie is period, because you can do the cell phones. They're so difficult. Here's the other one that always works. I just bought a house. Something's weird in this place. I can't figure it out. Is he making fun of my entire business?

I'm not making fun of it. I like these movies. I'm kidding. Have you been up in the attic? Found this chest. Oh my God. Don't open it. Let's have some wine first and turn off all the lights and put on some candles and make sure it's midnight but like

one of my favorite movies ever is amityville horror the original with james brolin yeah that's which is the most terrified i've ever been in a movie theater and like i used to wake up at 3 15 in the morning and be freaked out and the whole thing and it's like we did an amityville horror i remember i don't think I haven't seen it. No, you haven't seen it. The Ryan Reynolds one? No, no, no, no. We didn't do that.

We did another one. We did one of the sequels? It's not out yet. It's coming out on VOD. It's coming out on Google Play, I think. Is it a remake of the old ones? No. It's a remake. It's a reimagination a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a re, no, no, it's not a reimagination.

Reimagination. Ah, reimagination. Amityville, DOG, Long Island. Um, yes. You've been to that house. I grew up five minutes from that house. Did you really? Yeah. Now, do you know that house?

Do you know that was for sale and it was super cheap? I wanted to buy it. I didn't. For what reason? Because it's this great, it's an amazing house. Tourist attraction? And it was super cheap because people thought it was haunted. I mean, how crazy is that?

I just want to say that I knew that was for sale and I knew what the price was. And I looked at all the rooms and it was like way cheaper than I thought it was going to be. It's on the water. You went in to look at the house? Yeah, that and the Boogie Nights house. I circled. I never would have bought them, but I just wanted to live in a world where I could have. I only saw pictures.

Wasn't it great? The end of a house was amazing. Did you see the Boogie Nights house? No. How was that? It's in West Covina. We thought about moving our entire ringer operator, all of our video to the Boogie Nights When you say we thought about it.

Well, I thought about it. You thought about it and we said, there's no way that will happen. It was like less than a million dollars. It was exactly the same. It was Jack Horner's house with all the thing. We could have shot all our video there. I mean. And we weren't going to do it, but we had the conversation. Fantastic.

We were never going to move to the Amityville Horror House. That was never on the table. No, that was never happening. No, I actually, I got to say, I would be terrified to actually buy that house. Now, we made a movie about that. I do believe, like, he did shoot all the people in that house. That happened. Yeah, he did. I wouldn't be. You know, we made a movie about this. Did you see

Sinister? Yeah. Great movie. Okay, my bad. My bad. I'm sorry. I've seen every movie you made on the same TV. I love watching horror movies. I'm sorry. So, remember Sinister?

That's the plot of Sinister. He moves his family into a haunted house. With your friend Ethan. With my friend Ethan. Yeah. That's not a high concept, but that was a great... I really love... I really think Scott Derrickrickson is i was gonna

say another filmmaker that you springboard a partner that's an excellent partner we're working on on different different things with him but he he was that's a great movie here's another one hey i found this ouija board in the attic don't use it oh god now let's get drunk and use it one night what could go wrong that That's actually a good- That's it. That's a threat. That's Ouija 3. Yeah.

That's a good thing to discuss because on paper, the Ouija movie shouldn't work and had been in the universe- Oh, I disagree. Forever. I'm scared of Ouija boards. That had been in Hollywood for a long time. It's a $100 million movie. It was in Hollywood.

It was like Platinum Dunes. We made it for 100 cents. Yes. Yeah. So how does that happen? How do you make a board game a good movie? Entirely great filmmaker. We only made one, by the way.

We made two. The first movie, I thought we did not hit the mark. Two is the better. The second movie was Mike Flanagan. But how do you make a board game a great movie? You go to someone who's fantastic. And Mike Flanagan, he really, he really, he helped us a lot on the first movie. And then he made the second movie terrific. And he's the reason that the movie is great. I mean, he's a massively talented fellow.

That's how you do it. That's how you do it. And then you have to let them be free. You have to let them be free. And that's easy for me to say because our movies are low budget. You know, if we were making $50 million Ouija movie, you can't let a film, you can't just let someone do whatever they want unless it's, you know, one of five people. And so that's how we do it. You let one slip by though. Which one? I don't think you did the bye-bye man. Yeah, but are we regretful of that?

So I say yes. Talk to me. Tell me why. Because I think your team could have – it was the pieces were there. Well, we passed on it. The pieces were there and it needed something. I still saw it in the theater with my son. Did you?

Just for the record, yeah. Yeah, we passed on it. And I liked it better than the people that worked for me so i totally blame them and then throwing them throwing them but it wasn't good i feel like it should have it was one of those it could have been it could have been it had elements and like fay dunway shows up at one point that was that i know why that happened but yeah yeah yeah that was you know that was one of the smart ones you did that I would love to see more of is Unfriended. Which is like the online horror experience.

That was great. Is untapped. I love that. Yeah. Well, there have been some knockoffs which haven't worked in that arena. One was just released recently, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

What was that one? It was called... Friend Request or something? Nice. It was called Friend Re or something nice it was called pen request it didn't work is it on netflix yet yeah it will be in about three weeks it will be in three weeks you'll you can let your son know anybody go to the attic that'll be the day he joins facebook what do you think do you think the babysitter era will ever come back oh yeah

definitely because like they that prom night which i'm out of horror movies to watch with my kids, so we tried to watch Prom Night for 1980, which is just really awful. Wow. Really, really, really bad. Right. And then they rebate it like 10 years ago. And the remake's not terrible. Right, right.

But that whole era, they tried to do Halloween, and then they tried to do all the different holidays. There wasn't really – the one you did you did happy death day that's coming out yeah that comes out yeah friday the 13th you basically created your own holiday happy death day comes out friday the 13th yeah i'm very very very pleased about what's that give me the one sentence concept uh the one sentence concept is uh the horror version of groundhog day i'm in. Right. There we go.

There we go. There we go. How many murders can you squeeze into one movie? Now, I will tell you something. I will admit something. It's cheating to use another movie in your high concept idea. It is cheating a little bit. Okay.

But I'll still cheat on this one. Technically, your high concept idea should not reference another film, right? But you can cross genre, though. We are crossing genre. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fine. It's a comedy. No, I'm just saying a pure high concept, you shouldn't really be referencing another movie.

But it still works. Credit to you guys. The movie is very self-aware about that. It knows what it's doing. Oh, yeah. You saw it? Yeah. Yeah.

Why didn't you tell me? Where was it? We were asked specifically for you to say, I said, absolutely. He could see anything we've ever done, even if we haven't shot it yet. The thing is, you're going to love it no matter what, given this conversation.

I missed the link. We'll get you another one. I was in New York City last week. Yeah, we'll get you another one. There's a link? It's like, watch Happy Death Day tonight? Tonight. This is the greatest day of LA.

Yeah, wait. You have a nine-year-old and a half-year-old. Oh, I know what we're doing today. No, how many? There's a link So I can watch Happy Death Day tonight Tonight This is the greatest day of LA Yeah wait You have a nine year old And a housey old Oh I know what we're doing today No how many A twelve and a half year old daughter So twelve and a half and nine Yeah

Perfect It's made for the daughter It's PG-13 We're out of movies Well I mean Here's how bad I got I'm here to deliver I'm here to save

We watched The Forest on Tuesday night Stop watching The Forest The Forest is not good Get on to Happy Death Day Stop it Don't fall asleep in The Forest Stop with The Forest. Forest is not good. Get on to Happy Death Day. Don't fall asleep in The Forest. Stop with The Forest already. Not a great one. I would like to see the

Friday the 13th genre. I feel like that's the untapped. I don't know who owns the rights for that. I do. So I tried to get it because I really want to do that movie. It's time. Hold on. We got to go back to Happy Death Day in a second because there's one thing I want to say about it, but let me just talk about Friday the 13th.

Please. Iconic. I call up. Iconic. Iconic. You remember the commercial? You were 11 like me. That commercial would come out when you were like 10 years old.

And it was like, one, murder. Two, murder. And it was like, I'd be like terrified. Can I tell my like, one, murder. Two, murder. And it was like, I'd be like, I'd be like terrified. Yeah, can I tell my story? Yeah, please. Okay, okay. I'm going to leave out the names

because it's a little controversial what I'm about to say, but you know what? I'm just going to go for it. Okay. I call up the studio that controls the rights to Friday the 13th.

This is about two years ago. They've been developing it for a long time and they have this interesting thing which happens a lot in these movies that have been around a while. If they don't make a movie by a certain time, the movie reverts to a total different rights holder.

In this case, it was another studio. I called them up two years ago. I said, guys, you've been futzing with this thing for a long time. I said, I can make this movie. They had it at 15, at $20 million. I said, I can make this movie they had 15 at 20 million dollars i said i can make the movie for five million bucks i have a awesome idea for the movie i have an amazing filmmaker let me make i'll co-finance it i'll put a path you know whatever like let me make this with

you and they said that is a great idea we can't wait we're in and i never heard from them again and i thought i really never heard from them again and i thought i really never heard from them again and they developed this movie they they just were nice to me and then they they ignored me and then they developed this friday the 13th and it and it at it the budget went from 15 to 18 and i even i even i even i even i even told the filmmaker who i think is a good film i got told the filmmaker who was attached at the time. I said, I really don't think this movie is going to happen. We were talking about something else. Anyway, that movie shut down.

And that studio, the rights reverted. The studio lost the rights. The rights went to another studio. Shuts down because they couldn't just get their shit together? They couldn't get it together. And so it irks me, that one. But I would love to do it. I would love to do it.

Are you going to swoop in? No. together. And, and, and so it irks me that one, but I would love to do it. I would love to do it. Are you going to swoop in? For the, the, the, the, no, because the studio where it's, I mean, the studio where it is, I don't think I, I mean, I would try the studio where it is now has a, it's not like anyone would know if they looked all this stuff up, but a studio, I feel like I'm just talking in code, not in code, but the studio where it is has a much, much healthier track record in the genre. So they're unlikely to take my phone call about that particular subject. I'm ready.

Well, they're going to make it. They'll do a good job. I'm going to give you a movie to buy the rights for just because you've been a great guest. I'm ready. I'm ready. God, I can't wait. Silent Ridge. Chuck Norris. for just because you've been a great guest i'm ready i'm ready god i can't wait silent ridge chuck norris 1980 i know the movie one i know the movie i know the movie starts out yes remind me mentally ill guy right starts out he's just chopping wood in the back

loses his mind for some reason something snaps snaps his house. It's too chaotic. His family does snaps, goes in, just starts killing his family with an ax. Sheriff Chuck Norris comes in. They ended up having a little karate fight, subdues him in the back of the police car. The guy kicks the windows out,

runs out. They shoot him. He's dead. Goes to the hospital. Ron Silver, runs out. They shoot him. He's dead. Goes to the hospital. Ron Silver, the doctor, he's been messing around with this medicine idea that can bring people back to life. And they decide to start using this guy's corpse to see if they can do it. They make him indestructible.

He goes out. He can't die. He's the serial killer. He can't die. Goes the serial killer he can't die goes back out this guy now he's going out he's killing people they don't know who's doing it and chuck norris gets him and then i just i'm so will you direct it i want i just want to be a consultant i do want to point out that that is also the story of a movie called frankenstein so you may want to that may may be taken. That's fair.

Yes, that is fair. That may be taken. But I did, I did an, like when I was writing for ESPN, I think like 2001, Ali came out. Right. And I did the junket and I talked to everybody for 10 minutes and Ron Silver played like Angelo Dundee. You asked about Silent Rage. So we sit down and Ron Silver's like doing this junket. He's like in a coma and I'm like, in a coma. And I'm like, silent rage.

And he's like, the guy who would have died. He got so excited. I had him for 10 solid minutes. What else do we want to talk about? I have several things to discuss. Yeah, okay. First of all, we haven't talked about The Gift, which is one of our favorite movies.

We were just talking about it. Very well. Oh, good. I mean, I think it was my kind of movie. Let me rephrase that. Let me rephrase that. It did, we didn't do very well off it and the filmmaker didn't do very well off it,

which irks me to this day. But that was, it was more an issue of the international didn't do particularly well and the P&A was pretty high on the movie. But overall, it was certainly looked at as a success. But for me, much more importantly, critically, I just loved the movie. I thought Joel did such a terrific job. It was good. I mean, you gave Joel Edgerton a shot to make a movie. You never made a movie before. Yeah, we did. We did.

Why? I'm a big believer. I really don't like working with first-time directors, but my definition of first-time directors is like 23-year-old, had a short and Sundance. Yeah, but I think actors, I really believe in actor-directors. That's what Jordan Peele, I mean, he was a writer-director. He was a showrunner. The best people to direct our movies are showrunners. I'm always going after TV showrunners to direct our movies, but they make so much money doing show running.

They rarely want to take five months off to make a movie, but the best fit for our company are TV showrunners. But I think actors who spent a long time on sets, I really believe in, I'm always trying to get actors to direct movies. Vincent D'Onofrio is directing Ethan now in a movie. I talked to Ethan yesterday and he was saying, you know, it's just, even though it's not basically he's a first time director, he did one

little tiny movie, but it's like, it's, it's just, they know what they want and they, and the other actors feel so, so many directors don't talk to actors. They're frightened. They're scared of them or intimidated by it. It's amazing the number of directors who don't focus on actors, which to me is the most important part of the movies is acting. So I really believe in working with directors and converting them, working with actors, converting them to directing. And then you started branching out doing, trying to do the model that you kind of grew up working in, which was Dimension and Miramax. And Dimension was the horror side and Miramax was like the indie side. And then you're like, why can't this all be one thing?

And you do Whiplash, which I thought was fantastic. One of my favorite movies of the decade. I love that movie. And you stumbled into this director who was kind of a prodigy. Yeah, it was amazing. So what did you see in him? Well, you mean, why did we do it? I'll tell you the Whiplash story.

So the Whiplash story is kind of a good story. The whiplash story was, uh, I, we, the guy who runs production for us, a guy named Cooper Samuelson, who's a terrific executive and right towards the beginning, he's been with us for four or five years now, maybe six years. And right in the beginning, he brought me the script of whiplash, which I read and I thought it was a good script. I didn't think it was the most amazing thing in the world. I thought it was fine. I said, we don't make this. This is a fun script. It's not for us. And Cooper is a very smart guy, very, very bright guy. And one of my favorite filmmakers is Jason Reitman. And Cooper knew someone who worked for Jason Reitman.

Cooper gave the script to that person. And Cooper knew Damien worked for Jason Reitman. Cooper gave the script to that person. And Cooper knew Damien because they had gone to college together and Damien had done, you know, Cooper found Damien 100%. And anyway, he got Jason Reitman to agree to produce the movie. And he came back in my office a month later, two months later, he said, what if Jason Reitman was producing? I said, we're in. Just because I'm a Jason Reitman fan. I said, I want to work with Jason Reitman. I Jason Wrightman fan. I said, I want to work with Jason. I want to meet Jason Wrightman.

I want to work with Jason Wrightman. And I, and that's, and that was the beginning of, of whiplash, which is pretty cool. So I'm friends with Jason. Very good.

And he's one of the six people I can have a kicking and screaming conversation. You mean because no one else has seen it? No, because you have to be of a certain, you have to be the, there's a, there's like a two year age range where that movie hits you differently than if you're any other age range. Right, right, right.

Which is our age range. It's that Generation X. Right. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with my life. There's no job market. And I just, and I wish I was still in college, but I'm not. Do you know what the original title of the movie was? What?

For your Kicking and Screaming trivia? It was called Fifth Year. And it was about exactly what you just said, which is about, we all went to Vassar together, Noah and Jeremy Kramer and I, and we produced the movie and Noah directed the movie. We were roommates in college. And we had this, I think, unusual college experience when we were at college. We were very cognizant of the fact that it wasn't going to get as good as it was in college for a long time. Yeah. You know what I mean? They gave you cameras, you made movies. We were making movies every day and free this and they had free food, everything. Your whole life is taken care

of. And I think it took 20 years for me anyway, to get to a place where I felt as good as I did in college. And we all were very aware of that. And we all used to make endless jokes about trying not to graduate to stay for a fifth year. And so the movie was called fifth year about exactly what you just said. So which character were you? I was a character in the movie. I'm not even going to remember Skippy, Skippy.

You were Skippy? I was Skippy. I was, I was Skippy. Who played Skippy? The dude, Carl from 90210. Jason Wiles.

Jason Wiles. I was Skippy. I was Skippy. I was Skippy.ippy wow so you had like a love-hate relationship with your girlfriend yes i had yes i did i did i did i did i did actually and she hooked up with one of your friends and she did that too she did that too she did that too that movie came out i saw it by myself in cambridge no not cambridge in uh in um where b the bu theater whatever the nickelodeon yeah right and right like at that specific point in my life i was grover amazing right down to the point where he's calling his dad talking about the next i'm like what the fuck just happened there are cameras in my apartment and uh three weeks or so i get a kicking and screaming email from Bill.

It's just like, remember that scene, kicking and screaming? That's amazing. There's only a couple, like Klosterman likes it, Michael Weinreb. There's a small group of just like,

that's like our movie. Where was that? Yeah. So you want to hear a good kicking and screaming story? So I was, my first job, I was roommates with Noah in Chicago. We moved from Poughkeepsie to New York.

We moved to Chicago. We lived in this one bedroom apartment. And Noah was writing, kicking and screaming. And I sold cable TV. I did commission only cable TV, like door to door salesman. And then after a year in Chicago, we moved to New York. And I was a real estate agent. I got my real estate license.

I was a real estate agent in New York. We sent the script out to everyone. We had a live, it was before computer, before email. We had a list on the thing of the wall. We sent 300 copies of the script out. Every day we'd spend three hours. How did we do? And years went by. Finally, my father, who is retired now, but he was an art dealer. And my father did this super nice thing. And he's still very good friends with Steve Martin. And Steve Martin and him talked about art. I didn't know Steve Martin, but he gave Steve Martin the script of Kicking and Screaming, which was amazing when it come to, I think about it now. And even more amazing, Steve Martin read

the script. It was by a child. It was by an NYU, I mean, not NYU, it was by a child it was by an nyu i mean not in my vast it was by a 20 it was like a kid i mean imagine how many scripts he gets and anyway he read it and he loved it and he wrote a letter on his stationery which i still have to this day and i have 900 copies of it which i'll explain why. And he called, or I got him on the phone somehow. My hand was shaking like this, I remember. And I said, would you think about being in the movie? Which was a joke. It's like, no, I'm not going to be in the movie. I'm not going to be in your student film, which is essentially what it was. I said, could we show your letter to other people? He said, show the letter to anyone you want.

He said, I thought the script was great. I wish you guys the best of luck. He could have played Elliot Gould's character. I know, I know. But at that time, even when that happened, it was so pre, the movie was so not in any shape or form. Right. We ripped off the cover page of the script.

I put Steve Martin's letter, which was this effusive letter about kicking and screaming back in the script. We sent it back out to the 300 people. The movie got made six months later. Unbelievable. Isn't that cool? It was really cool.

I thought Josh Hamilton, I would have bought a ton of stock. I mean, it's not like his career went badly, but it seemed like he was going to, he had a chance to be like somebody big, super famous. I don't think he necessarily, I don't think it doesn't seem like he wanted it. I was going to say, i don't think he necessarily i don't it doesn't

seem like he wanted it i was gonna say i don't think that's what his his end goal he's an amazing huge theater actor he's an amazing theater actor and watching josh on stage is is a is just incredible and i'm really glad to tell you the truth that he, that he did choose that because he's so, so good on stage. He's like, you know, Liev is like that. Just like there's certain people not to say that Liev is not a great,

you know, but, but like when you watch them on stage, you're just like, oh, and there's certain stage actors, you know, who did become famous and do a big TV series or whatever.

And I think it's kind of sad. Sean's generation's younger than us. Our generation, some of the movies, especially the ones that resonated like that one and like before Sunset, which was the first one? Sunset or Sunrise? Before Sunrise. Sunrise, Reality Bites, they're all about,

it was like this old school era that kind of started with Say Anything, the hold the, get a blaster outside of the radio. But it was so hard to communicate with people. We didn't have cell phones back then. It was like if you love somebody and they weren't near you, you had to figure out how to stay in touch with them. You had to write a poem. Yeah, and kick it and scream it.

The girl moves away. She leaves a message on his machine. And he won't listen to the whole thing for two months. and screaming like the girl moves away she leaves a message on his machine yeah and he'd like that won't listen to the whole thing for like two months yeah yeah and has no idea what happened to her and she sent a postcard now they would just be texting of course movie wouldn't couldn't but that was that era it was like i may never see this person again what's gonna happen yeah i don't know we wanted i became friends with ethan right around that time because and one of the reasons we really wanted him to be in the movie, of course, and, um, you know, he would have been great. And, and that's when I started,

I started when I moved to New York and was a real, I was a real estate agent during the day and produce kicking and screaming during the day. And at night I was producing this theater company called Malaparte and Ethan Hawke was the, was the artistic director. And he was right at the reality bites time. So he was, he, not that he's, you know, he was super, super famous to a very specific generation, just like you're talking about. And Ethan and I would go on 42nd Street to TKTS, you know, where they're lined for the people in line,

the tourists in line to buy tickets. And they would recognize it. Oh my God, that's Ethan Hawke. And I was behind him with the flyer for a show. And I'd say, yeah, it is. And you can see him tonight in a play for 10 bucks. And we did theater for $10 and we did it for years. And it was a great, it was Ethan,

it was Frank Whaley, Robert Sean Leonard, Josh Hamilton, Isabel Gillies, Calista Flockhart. It was this Steve Zahn, this amazing group of actors. Robert Sean Leonard, another guy who had a lot of stuck. These guys had great careers. Let's not run these guys down. No, I know they did. I just, after Dead Poets,

it was like, that guy's gonna be- Well, Robert Sean Leonard did House forever. Yeah. He married my, I introduced him to my cousin. He's married to my cousin. Wow. And we're,

we've been friends for 25 years now. He is, and I'm so glad he's done with House and now he's starting to do theater again, but he's another, you know, incredible. I'm just glad he's lived after Dead Poets Society.

I thought he died. Oh my God. Neil! Neil! This is my son! This is my relative, for God's sake. My son!

It's such a devastating movie. We didn't talk about Miramax. I think we have to at least. Miramax? Yeah, I think we have to at least mention Harvey. I mean Yeah, I think we have to at least mention Harvey. I mean, this is pretty newsworthy at this point. I would feel like a coward if I didn't bring it up.

He worked for him for five years. I know, I did. Famously temperamental character. Yeah, he was- Controversial. Yeah. Wait, what's the most misunderstood thing about him? Oh my God, he's been so dissected and examined. I think there's

very little left that that's misunderstood. I mean, I think, I think it's, I think it's, he's, I think he's, you know, he's been under a microscope for so long. Um, you know, I think, I think, I think what's happened is, is really sad. I think it's excellent that, um, women are coming forward and I think that they have to come forward and they have to come forward more. We're doing a series about Roger Ailes and we're doing a 10-part series on Roger Ailes and the Bill O'Reilly. I mean, I think there's nothing good about it, except that I think it's good that women are coming forward. And I think it's very alarming what happened. How much did you see that when you were there?

I didn't see it. No, I can talk about it. I didn't. I mean, I didn't see any of it. I heard rumors about I was a 27-year-old white guy. I was not in the inner circle. I was a very young executive there. So I heard rumors about it and I heard rumors about everything else.

But I didn't experience any of it firsthand. There's one other person that is notable for Bill that you have worked with closely, which is M. Night Shyamalan. Oh, yeah. Who you're having a lot of success with now. Yeah. We're on our third movie together. There's been an M. Night revival. M. Night revival.

It's just Shyamalanissance. Shyamalanissance. Shyamalanissance. We went to his, my wife and I were on the East Coast for part of the summer, and we went to his house and had lunch with him. He's got this amazing, amazing estate in Pennsylvania. Sixth sense money? Sixth sense money. Or maybe the second one, unbreakable money.

I don't know. What do I mean? I don't know. But he's just a terrific, spectacular filmmaker. And he loves movies, you know. His house is almost kind of a shrine to storytelling. And it's, I love working with him. He's so enthusiastic.

He's so, you know, it's amazing how many, how many writers and directors you, you work with who were, you know, not, not that driven. And you, in order to, you gotta, if you got it to be in this business, as you know, and we, we know you, you, you have to love it and it has to be in your bones. And I'm surprised the amount of people I come across who it doesn't like that. And Knight, boy, he just thinks about it and thinks about every aspect of everything he's doing. That's inspiring to be around.

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Also, great shaving cream by Gillette. Hey, pricing applies to select products and is at the sole discretion of the retailer. And since we're here, next week, NBA Palooza preview on The Ringer, Monday and Tuesday. We have so much stuff going up on all of our platforms. Go to the landing page on theringer.com as soon as it goes up. Podcasts, videos, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you name it. It's all happeningay and tuesday we're going to cover the nba with the love and respect that it deserves all right back to jason bloom i'm going to go through all the things on your imdb that are in production okay what i'm going to guess i'm going

to guess in one sentence yeah and then can i can i talk about um chris landon a little bit because i haven't gotten to talk about him and it's one of my favorite topics when do that now happy death day um as i think about what we talked about you's one of my favorite topics. When did that happen? Happy death day. Um, as I think about what we talked about, you know, one of the things that I like best about my job is that I get to work with these, um,

super, super talented, creative people. Um, and most of them we talked about, but we haven't talked about Chris Landon. So Chris Landon and I did four paranormal activity movies together. He wrote three of them.

Those were acted. The fourth one. Those were, I saw the first one in the theater. I was like, this is just smart. Yeah. That couldn't have cost more than like 10 bucks.

10,000 bucks. 15,000 bucks. 15,000 bucks. 15,000 bucks. Smart. We, we, we,

we, yeah, it was great. It was great. Anyway, so, so Chris Landon, we did all these movies together and he's, he is one of the

real authors of the success of the paranormal sequels. And I've always wanted to do something else with him. And he's, he's really a great writer director. I also think he's undervalued because he's working on sequels. So he doesn't, you know, usually the person who gets credit for the franchise is the person who started it, which was Oren, Chris Scott, Chris Scott, you know, the people who help out the sequels get overshadowed of it. So all I,

all I just wanted to say was that it was great to finally get to do this with him. And he, he really, he rewrote, but essentially wrote and directed the movie. And I'm, you know, looking forward to working on a lot more with him and, and you have to see it tonight with your kids. It's happening. I want you guys to know something. If I moved into a house and something weird happened, like in the first week, like the dining room table just tipped over, but nobody was in the house, I'm fucking out. You just said you wanted to buy the Amityville Horror House.

No, I didn't say I wanted to buy it. I said I was fascinated by the thought of buying it. I wouldn't have actually bought it. I was like, wow, this is available? Who's buying this thing? I would have bought it. I was like, wow, this is available. Who's buying this thing? I would have bought it. Now, what you just said is the single most difficult storytelling issue we deal with on every single movie. That's why Get Out was kind of so great. It's like the old Andy Murphy joke from 35 years ago.

Get Out was a joke on watching a movie, watching a move, watching a haunted house movie, and you're in the audience. You're like, get out. That's what it's about. Because it's like, what and you're in the audience, you're like, get out! That's what it's about. Because it's like, what are you staying in the house, you idiot? Get out. Now, James on Insidious did this great thing in the first Insidious where they leave, remember?

Yes. They're in a house. This stuff goes, happens, just like you said. And then Patrick and Rose are like, we need to leave. And the brilliant thing about a first Insidious movie is the end of the first act, they move to a new house. And then that's why the tagline of the movie, it's the house that your son is haunted, not the house or whatever the thing is, which is the ghost moves with them, which is great. But the biggest trick of making scary movies is how to keep people in a haunted

house. Just what you said. Super hard to do. Did you fire like eight people after it became a massive success? I fired everyone. Start over just get an entertainment talk about that but then i stopped myself but now that you've opened it up i will talk about it because i was what i was gonna say was that it just killed the only record we have left basically it just killed all of our records the only one we have left is the most profitable movie as it relates from budget 15,000 to gross. So percentage of budget. But everything else. Now, and I will say, in my defense.

My kids loved it. In my defense. I loved it too. I loved it too. It's really good. It's really good. It's a big budget movie. So the reason that everyone.

Nice. I like this. I like this. It peed on a little bit. I like it. No, no. I'm not peeing on it. You got your boxing gloves on. You got to, no. I'm not peeing on it. You got your boxing gloves on.

You got to be competitive. No, no, no. I'm not peeing on it. I'm just suggesting it's a different game. Lower degree of difficulty. They have more money. Yes. Definitely lower degree of difficulty.

But the reason, if it was a $5 million movie, I think I would have just jumped off my building and that would have been the end of me and it stephen king got paid for that did he get paid for it yeah oh yeah okay oh yeah don't worry i'm worried about him i don't know if he has enough money i think he was fine before if you thought you're right if you thought of it you got paid at that studio or anything to do anyone who had anything to touch anything yeah yeah yeah does that make you more competitive, when you see a movie like that break some of your records? Oh, of course, of course. But the thing, when Get Out was going up, I was looking at The Exorcist was the highest grossing movie of all time.

And I remember when I looked at that number when Get Out, I was like, could we do it? And I was thinking, boy, that just can never happen. It was 1972. It can never happen. And then when it broke, even though it's not whatever, it did break it in different dollars, but whatever. So yeah, totally. It made me want to play.

Did you feel like the secret of Get Out was kept secret enough? Because I mean, you think about like, did you, we had this great thing in the trailer. I thought it was. I didn't. Yeah. We had this great moment. Because I was worried the internet's going to fuck things up.

But I remember Blair Witch 20 years ago. I was in the theater and blair witch it finished i didn't know if it happened or not like they'd get because in that area you could really keep the secret the whole time yeah get out i'd like um we had this great moment in the run-up to the movie where we had the moment of the keys her dangling the keys that was in the trailer and i thought it should have been in the trailer. And I thought it should have been in the trailer and the studio thought it should have been in the trailer. My great marketing partners, Josh and Michael, we were all three on the same page. And Jordan said, it can't be in the trailer. Gives it away. And between Michael, Josh, and I, we've done 300 movies. Jordan has done one.

So it's a really tough position to be in. And we said, we tested them together and dah, dah, dah. It was about a month of conversations. And finally, Jordan came in and said, you just can't do it. And Jordan's an incredible talent for a lot of reasons, but that right there is a great example of it. We didn't do it, obviously. It was a totally stupid thing to have done. I was wrong, Josh and me, the three of us were wrong and Jordan was right. But to do one movie and get your way and not piss the three of us off because he really thought about it and worked on it and he just said, I can't live with this. I just can't live with this. And there are a lot of studios that would have said, we don't care. And another great thing about a low budget movie is it's harder for

a studio to say that. When they're looking at a director who hasn't been paid for the work that he's done, he only gets paid if the movies makes money. And he says, I can't live with this. You almost kind of morally have to listen to him. I feel that way and Universal felt that way. And we did. And he was right. And it's a real, you know, it's a tribute to him. Trust creative people way and Universal felt that way and we did and he was right and it's a real, you know, it's a tribute to him. Trust creative people. That's one of my mottos. That's right.

Sean Fennessey. Trust creative people. Yeah, I'm not one of them though. So how do you get Jordan an Oscar now? What has to happen? Forget it. Oh boy. Oh boy.

Oh, this is another one of my passion points. Horrors and, horror movies and comedies. Can you help me with this? How the fuck was there something about Mary not nominated for an Oscar? I don't know. Like seriously, that's the best comedy of the whole decade. That's your average pick?

No. That's a unique choice. But if you make- I think that's generational. If you make an awesome- I think that's generational. Awesome- Because I think it's great.

Revolutionary comedy. It should be in. That should be one of the five movies. Yeah. If you, like Get Out should be be, how many do you have? Eight to ten choices? Yeah. Well, Get Out, Get Out, Get Out, Get Out.

I mean, different from a comedy. No, it's a thriller. But it's also, it's about race. I mean, it's very, very timely. And so I think the idea that you shouldn't get penalized because a lot of people have seen your movie. And hopefully it'll be recognized. But certainly I want it to be. And certainly I'm trying to that you shouldn't get penalized because a lot of people have seen your movie and hopefully it'll be recognized. But certainly I want it to be. And certainly I'm trying to get it recognized for sure.

I think 10 years ago, it probably gets snubbed and everybody gets mad. But now the internet, I think a lot of these people read the pieces and it seems like for the most part, the right things. My gut tells me there's a screenplay nomination coming. I hope so. The key is that you just, it's very hard. So many people say, I hate horror movies, and I never watch them, but I love Get Out. But there are a lot of people in the Academy who just say, I hate horror movies and haven't seen it.

The key is just getting those people to see it, because it's really more of a thriller than a horror movie. And once they see it, they're totally into it. But there is a line you've got to get people over of being open to seeing. That's why I always say it's more like a Hitchcock movie because that's something that people feel more easily to see. I think that should be part of the campaign,

that it's a thriller, not a horror movie. Because it's not a horror movie. I think horror movie, I think of like, you know, somebody with an ax killing a bunch of sorority sisters. Yeah, yeah, me too, me too. It's a thriller. You can't, it's hard to open a thriller, but I think now it's being talked about as a thriller for sure.

Fatal Attraction's another one. We're working. That could have been. We have not a remake of Fatal Attraction, but I love Fatal Attraction. We have about three different things we're developing that I'm trying to kind of touch that nerve again. They're tributes to Fatal Attraction that I'm working on. of touch that nerve again. They're not, you know, they're tributes to fatal attraction that I'm working on.

This is Wesley Morris and I. This is one of our favorite bits, the from hell genre. Right. Fatal attraction launched the from hell, the nanny from hell, the ex-wife from hell, and just like everybody's from hell. Pacific Heights, the tenant from hell. Yeah, totally.

It always works. Totally, totally. Now that there's been a rejuvenation of it, the last cut, they made the Allie Larder,er idris elba the assistant from hell yeah right um right there's another one where somebody's the ex-husband from hell and what is that always uh that might also be idris elba i like the surrogate from hell you know the woman who's carrying we've done a few of those actually hand. Hand That Rocks the Cradle, to me, is like the perfect type of this kind of movie.

The nanny, they don't realize that her husband killed herself because of the mom who was the patient, and now she starts working for them, and she's secretly breastfeeding the baby. Totally. And this is that reaction. Oh, no. Oh, the baby won't eat with the real mom anymore.

What's going on? The dim-witted gardener knows something's wrong. He's the only one. It's like everything. It's got all the elements of, hey, I want to go through quickly these movies. I'm ready. What do you want me to have? I'm just going after Happy Death Day.

How do you want me to comment exactly? It's true. It's not true. I'm just going to try to guess. They are happening. Sweetheart? Is that a dead that's in dead girlfriend that's in that comes back to haunt the guy who moves on with his life no no you're gonna try and guess you're gonna guess i'm trying to guess from the title i love it i love it no that's not right no no no no not even close on that but but i appreciate the try. STEM?

STEM cell scientist who starts experimenting at night and creates a serial killer? No. No, but STEM is awesome. STEM is Lee Wannell, who wrote all the Insidious movies and directed the third one. Give us one sentence of STEM. STEM is an AI action movie. It's awesome. Okay.

What's the one sentence for sweetheart? Sweetheart is not pregnant, but you should believe the, always believe the woman if she's seeing something evil. Oh, I like it. That's not the one liner. That's, well, whatever. Ghoul, that's, I mean, you could say that somebody moved

into the wrong house that movie isn't could be a cemetery in the backyard we did that in outside this brilliant idea i'm like we're gonna make all our movies in india pirated so i'm like hey let's make it let's if you can't beat him join him let's make a movie in hindi and let's say from the makers of the gift and the visit and get out and this one and that one comes ghoul i don't know how to say that in hindi but it's in Hindi. And so we've been working on this for three. We finally made one of these movies in India. It's actually quite a, you know, it's an interesting movie, but it's in Hindi. It's only going to be seen in India. And it was a little bit of a folly because I thought it was going to be, you know, I thought it was going to make money off it,

which I don't think we're going to do. We're not going to lose, but it was, it was kind of, that's Jason's folly, but, but it's an interesting movie. If you get Bill a link though, he and his son will watch it. That's great.

I'll say, will you watch Ghoul Before the Forest? No. I don't know. It's a toss up. Insidious, The Last Key. That's great.

That's done. It comes out in January. That's our next movie after our happy death day. You don't have to guess that. The Purge, The Island. That's just great. The great. That's done. It comes out in January. That's our next movie after our happy death day. You don't have to guess that. The Purge the Island. That's just great. The Purge the Island. That's what's on your IMDb.

That's fake news. Fake news. Okay. Halloween's not fake news. Right. This next one, I'm all the way in. Truth or Dare. I'm in.

What a great title. Truth or Dare. You don't even need to give me the one sentence. Truth or Dare. Yeah. Great idea. Finished. Stockholm sounds like somebody in the basement who starts identifying with their captor.

Someone in a bank robbery. But yes, it comes from... Stockholm is about the event that caused... Oh. That named Stockholm Center. It was in Stockholm. And it was a bank robber who took... It's Ethan's in the movie.

It was in a bank robber who took hostages. And exactly what you said. That's a great idea. took, it's Ethan's in the movie. It was in a bank robber who took hostages and exactly what you said. That's a great idea. Yeah, it's cool. Glass? That's M. Night's movie. Submitting a bubble who can't get out of. No, it's the sequel. You can do better than that.

It's the sequel to Split, you know, Mr. Glass. Unbreakable. Why didn't you call that Split 2? No, Unbreakable. It's the sequel to Unbreakable and Split. Oh, it's the sequel to Unbreakable. The one from 20 years ago? It's Sam Jackson and Bruce Willis.

Sam Jackson. How'd you get him? Yeah, Sam Jackson. He missed my whole story. I went to Philadelphia two weeks ago. I was in the reading. I heard that part. Bruce Willis, Sam Jackson, Sarah-

I think it was called Glass. Yeah, it's called Glass. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Spawn. I'm going to do the story again. Spawn, yes.

Haven't shot that yet. We're making that. That's Spawn, the comic series. The comic series. Yeah. Todd McFarlane, who's a great Wiley character. I love him. Spooky Jack could go in a hundred different directions.

That's DreamWorks animation. That's a kid's fun movie, scary movie. That's an animated movie. I'm going to give you two that I think can come back. Two genres. Hit me. You done with IMDb? Yeah.

Finished? That's all you had. Really? Okay, good. Okay. Do you have 500 other movies in the development? Yeah. I don't know. He's reading the wrong list. The Kid Who Might Be Evil. I'm obsessed with The Good Son. I think The Good Son was one of the great lost 90s movies. Macaulay Culkin. The Kid Who

Might Be Evil, but we've seen that a lot. Even recently. We've seen it badly. You want a good executed The Kid Who Might Be Evil. The Good Son might good son is a good movie right see she's nodding over there good son's good it's like there's something wrong with this kid the parents don't see it right okay this other person i'm a huge fan of that okay okay i'm gonna work on that kujo i think we're ready for kujo again you do i'm not sure kujo again. You do? I'm not sure. Cujo? The rabid dog?

I'm not sure. I know what it is. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. Cujo. Ready for another rabid dog movie. People love dogs.

You can do this whole like meta thing about making fun of all the people. It has to be CG. You can't use real dogs anymore. It has to be CG. I hate doing CG. It's actually a great response because it's King Mania now. So you think there will be a Cujo movie. You can't use real dogs anymore yes wcgi i hate that it's a great actually a great response because it's king mania now so you think there will be a kujo you can't use real dogs anymore you can't use real dogs in movies freaking peter the asbca on kujo 2 should have happened you can't do it so they gotta be cgi and i i hate cgi i did especially for horror ah disaster what about for anything i guess it's just like it's like watching 3d. I can't stand 3D. I'm always taking

off the glasses in a 3D movie so I could actually see what's happening because it's so dark. But 3D is over now. Thank God. Never made sense. Never made sense. I never understood the revolution for it, especially the idea that I was supposed to put on 3D glasses in my house when then I couldn't- No, I'm talking about in the theater.

No, I know, but just that and then in the theater too, the whole thing supposed to put on 3D glasses in my house when then I couldn't. No, I'm talking about in the theater. No, I know. But just that and then the theater too. The whole thing. Money grab. 3D. They gave me a headache too. Me too. A lot of people watch the movie.

It was so dark. It's like, oh, Liam Neeson, where are you? I couldn't see. I literally would take them off in between the scenes. When it's not action, it looks like 2D without the glasses. And then when the action comes, you throw them off. Yeah. I just never understood it. Me me neither they were like shoving it down our throats for four years old maybe my kids didn't like it either i don't like them either what

would it take for you to make a hundred million dollar movie could you ever see yourself doing it you know i think about that a lot and i think i think i i would be very i i i think like what's the i know the reason why you're so good at this is because you stop, you forget, you answer the real answer, not the PR answer. That's what all your guests do. And that's what I'm gonna do now. I always, my road line,

I would never make a $100 million movie. But the true answer, I suppose, is there are circumstances I would do it. I guess I'd have to be with a filmmaker who I really felt connected to. I'd never do it with a filmmaker I hadn't worked with before, ever. I have weird money issues. I mean, there's a reason. And I make cheap movies. It's more complicated. I have crazy money issues. And I really, it bothers me to lose money, even if it's for somebody else. It doesn't, it makes no difference. You have crazy money issues and I really, it bothers me to lose money. Even if it's for somebody else, it doesn't, it makes no difference. You have competitive money issues. Competitive for sure. But also I don't like losing money for anyone. I don't like losing

money if it's our money on the line or someone else's money on the line. So I want to be really, I don't want to go to bed at night biting my nails. And so I'd have to be in with a director and we'd have to be really connected and have to have worked together before. Has any filmmaker tried to get you to do it? Never. No, no, no, no. That's a smart, rich person thing. I was talking once to somebody.

It was five years ago when the NBA hit that little, when they're about to have the lockout. Yeah, right. And teams were like, 19 of us are losing money. And then you actually dig through the figures and it was like, well, that team lost like $725,000. It's not like they're, you know,

they own an asset that's appreciating. Yeah. And the person who was very smart explained to me, it's like, that's not the point. It's not that it's $725. It's that it's a dollar they don't

like losing money at all never in the red bothers them right it doesn't get it and they go right that's red that's not black it can't handle that it does bother me but i don't think that's um i'm not proud of that i think it's a good way to think though it's good for business i'm just not proud of it but what makes a hundred million dollar movie because at this point it's like either you're paying premium prices for stars or you're paying for special effects and for things to blow up like why would you have to make a hundred million dollar oh you have to make kind of star wars and pixar movies and and and marvel movies they have you don't want to do stuff like that well that was the question i don't want to do any of those no but i'm not if there was an original movie that was with a filmmaker I really trusted and had

a great business relationship and had worked with before. I heard that. And they had an original idea that merited that number. It takes place in space or whatever. That I could potentially say. What I'm saying is, is there a $100 million movie that isn't one of those special effects movies? Well, probably not.

But we talked about the Andrew Nichol idea, which is one one of those things it's like it's a creative idea that captures your imagination and you just want to see it on screen and you know great producers they get dreams and they want to put andrew nickel asked me to make city that sails i would do it in a heartbeat i mean not not that it's not that makes it sound like if he asked me i could get it done i couldn't no one's going to finance the movie. It's not commercial. Right. But if in a dream world, if someone was, I would do that in a second. So I guess the right answer is if it was a story that I loved, of course, I would love to produce a hundred million dollar movie. That's the answer. Got it.

You helped me get to that answer. You're like my therapist right now. Thank you. I'm doing my best. Thank you. Thank you. I could use one too. Thank you. Die Hard, if they did it correctly and the original Die Hard never happened, is a hundred million dollar movie that's not like a special effects you need to get like bruce willis yeah you have to get some good side people you'd have to get the skyscraper yeah i love that but again i'm not you wouldn't do it now two years of my life i'm not doing that no but i'm saying that's like a hundred million dollar type of movie that wouldn't be Star Wars 9.

The most expensive movie, not we've ever done, but the most expensive movie we've done, we're doing now, is a total art film. It's one of the films you missed on your list, but it's a movie called Stoner. It's a book that I've- That was not my list. My bad. It was just the internet. The internet failing us yet again. Amazon, Amazon letting us down.

I'm interested in Stoner. Can you tell us about it? Yeah, so I optioned this book almost 10 years ago. It's totally an impossible book to turn into a movie. I actually did this thing for the PGA Awards about three years ago, and Ryan Murphy was interviewing me and said, is there one passion project you have always tried to get made and never has? And I said, Stoner, it's in the video of it. And I've been working on it forever. And it finally came

together. This incredible writer named Andrew Bevel adapted it in a way that everyone, including me, thought was impossible. I read it. I kept spending a little bit of money on it every year, but I didn't, I couldn't, I just loved the story. I didn't think the story, I had a lot of doubts if the story could ever be a movie, but I loved the story. And this writer turned this book into a great screenplay and Joe Wright is directing it and Casey Affleck is starring in it. And it's six times the budget of our commercial, of our genre. I was making a kind of joke to one of my partners that I'm willing to spend money on pure... You know what? I'm not going to say it. But anyway, it's very expensive and it's a total arthouse movie. I'd like to apologize. I missed the whole section on your IMDb. Thank you.

That was underneath. Well, I was sitting here. I was fidgeting and fumbling. I went too high. I mean, oh my God. No. Half of my children he killed over here. No.

I missed Unfriended Game Night, which I don't need to guess. That sounds fantastic. I'm in. Tremors. Remake of Tremors? Unfriended Game Night. Great, you're're in remake of tremors is uh is a television series okay did you see the original movie do you remember okay okay can i just pitch you the first scene of our tv show yeah you remember kevin in the movie he's 25 years old he walks out and takes

a leak do you remember that he pisses original movie Original movie. It's still Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon now, our age. He goes out of the car. He steps up to the fence to take a leak. Exact same shot. No piss comes out. He can't pee because he's 50. I mean, come on. Don't you love that?

He's not sold. Did we get him? He's not sold. Yeah, Kevin's in the show. Okay, good. Stoner, we talked about. Seven in Heaven. Is that a horror movie?

What are you talking? Are you kidding me? Truth or Dare. The sequel to Truth talked about. Seven in Heaven. Is that a horror movie? What are you talking? Are you kidding me? Truth or Dare. The sequel to Truth or Dare, Seven in Heaven. I got a whole. Where did you go for Truth or Dare? Of course. That's fantastic.

Yeah, of course. I love that. It's a whole universe. Teenage game universe. Is Only You the fatal attraction? Only You, no. Okay. No, no, no, no, not the fatal attraction.

No, but we just finished that one yeah what's that one you don't tell me uh that's the yeah we yeah that's top secret five nights at freddy's you know what that is right kruger no but you know what oh see wrong generation five nights ready's massive uh massive um kids game and it's one of our biggest movies. It's by a name Scott Cawthorne. He lives in Texas and he came up with five. There's a five nights at one. There's an aisle at Walmart that is five nights at Freddy's merchandise.

It's huge. How did my son miss this? I don't know. He has to know what it is. He has to know what it is. You're too busy showing him Halloween over and over again. Two adult movies. Devil's night.

I mean, I'm in. Black Klansman. What's'm in. Black Klansman. What's that one? Black Klansman, Spike Lee. We're producing it with Jordan Peele. And we start shooting in like three weeks. Very exciting.

The Bev Kearney story. That I've had on that IMDb for 12 years. We're not making that. That is not happening. But it's a great story. I think that's it. The Keeping Hours? That's finished.

Yeah, that's a finished movie. What list is's it. The Keeping Hours? That's finished. Yeah, that's a finished movie. What list is this you're looking at? This is so random. IMDb is all over the place. I mean, this is so random. Amityville, The Awakening. There it is. This is so random.

Where's Roger Ailes? I don't see that one. Yeah, I mean, very strange. All right, Sean, we kept this man enough. This is incredible. Jason, congratulations on making every great movie that Bill loves. I just want to, I want to get invited

to one Halloween, Halloween. How about our Halloween party? You know, we don't have a, we don't have a, oh, you're the movie.

How about our Halloween party? We don't have a Christmas party at Blumhouse. We have a Halloween party. You have a Halloween party? Super fun. I want to be invited to the Halloween party.

We'll invite all you guys. I expect to see all you guys. That'd be great. We would love that. Yeah. Thank you so much. This is great. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks guys. I expect to see all you guys. That'd be great. We would love that. Yeah. Thank you so much. This was great. Appreciate it.

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Don't forget about White Famous. I'm assuming you have a sense of humor if you listen to this podcast. I'm going to recommend the pilot of White Famous. It's a good one. And that's it. We might have two more podcasts this week. We have at least one. Who knows?

A lot of guests. Tommy Auther, head of our talent department at the ringer has been booking awesome guests like crazy we have some really good ones coming up until then I feel it's within On the wayside I'm a bruised soul I never was And I don't