Blumhouse Desperately Wants To Make New Freddy And Jason Movies

In the entertainment industry, 15 years is a pretty long time. In the horror-movie genre specifically, the last 15 years have witnessed two ongoing events: Blumhouse Productions has become one of the most influential (for better or worse) purveyors of horror, and two of the genre’s most influential and iconic franchises have lain almost completely dormant. This past Spooky Season, Blumhouse’s head, Jason Blum, expressed the hope that he might one day be able to unite with at least one of these properties to deliver the shot in the arm that both his company and these franchises could use right now.

Blumhouse – A Distinguished Name That Has Seen Better Days

Blumhouse was originally founded in 2000, but its first major success came nearly a decade later, when a found-footage flick called “Paranormal Activity” (released wide in 2009) made a tremendous profit and launched a whole franchise of similar low-budget cash cows. “Insidious” (2010), “Sinister” (2012), and “The Purge” (2013) are three more examples of early hits that quickly became brand-name horror franchises. In the ensuing decade, the company also produced such acclaimed horror flicks as “Get Out” (2017), “Happy Death Day” (2017), “The Invisible Man” (2020), the “Halloween” reboot trilogy (2018-22), and the two “Black Phone” films (2022 and 2025).

In recent years, however, Blumhouse has suffered a few setbacks to its success streak. In the early 2020s, the same creative team behind the financially successful but rather witheringly received “Halloween” trilogy developed “The Exorcist: Believer,” a reboot that was released in 2023 to poor reviews and a disappointing box-office performance. This reception prompted Blumhouse and the distributor, Universal Pictures, to cancel their planned “Exorcist” trilogy. Just two months past, Blumhouse lost the competition to acquire the rights to another iconic 50-year-old horror property, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” which went to A24 instead.

The past two years have been especially discouraging because of the number of Blumhouse-produced films that have been both critically and financially unsuccessful. This list includes last year’s “Afraid,” as well as this year’s “Wolf Man,” “The Woman in the Yard,” and, perhaps most disappointingly, “M3GAN 2.0,” a sequel to 2023’s massively successful “M3GAN” that grossed only $39.1 million on a budget of between $15-25 million.

In an October 8 interview with Variety, Blum was quite blasé about this year’s lackluster returns, attributing such misfortune to a cyclical oversaturation of the horror genre. “I’ve been through that cycle now about three times,” he said, “A few horror movies make money, then everyone makes horror movies and then they don’t make money. Then everyone pulls back, and so it goes. No moderation.” He cited “intellectual property and sequels” as the most successful groups of films at the moment – “People are going to the things that they know.”

Freddy and Jason – Blumhouse’s “White Whales”

In the horror genre, few things are better known to more people than “Friday the 13th” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Even many who’ve never seen a horror movie could probably recognize Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger on sight. So it’s pretty surprising (and, for many fans, frustrating) that we haven’t gotten a single feature-length film from either franchise since 2009 and 2010, respectively.

Is there a bright future for either of these legally troubled properties? Jason Blum certainly hopes so, and he’d like to be a part of it. In the Variety interview, when asked to name “the movie you’d kill to make,” he called these two franchises “my two white whales.” His hopes for getting hold of them are far from mere pipe dreams: He went on to explain that “We’re always haggling. I make a run at them every day. I will never give up the quest.”

Final Thoughts

Clearly, Jason Blum is not unduly discouraged by his company’s recent disappointments. If his prediction pans out, then Blumhouse should have much brighter days on its horizon. Freddy’s and Jason’s respective slumps have been much longer-running, with fewer signs of imminent improvement. Will Blumhouse’s comeback go hand-in-hand with that of either slasher icon – or perhaps both of them? In light of Blum’s Melvillean tenacity, this is a distinct possibility.