Sophia Takal’s “Black Christmas,” and the Producer Jason Blum on Horror with a Message

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

The Political Scene | The New Yorker
Episode: Sophia Takal’s “Black Christmas,” and the Producer Jason Blum on Horror with a Message
Date: October 28, 2019
Host/Interviewer: David Remnick
Guests: Sophia Takal (director), Jason Blum (Blumhouse CEO & producer)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the ways modern horror movies, specifically Sophia Takal’s “Black Christmas” and productions from Jason Blum’s Blumhouse, are being used to interrogate pressing social issues. The show explores Takal’s motivation in remaking a classic slasher through a feminist lens, and the evolution of socially conscious horror under Blum’s guidance. It also looks at the business and artistic philosophies that drive Blumhouse, and how current political and cultural anxieties are reflected in contemporary horror cinema.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sophia Takal and the Reimagining of Black Christmas

• Setting the Scene (01:46–03:45):
  The episode begins on the Brooklyn set of Black Christmas. Takal, her crew, and actors stage a “snowy” car escape—complete with fake snow made from diapers—demonstrating the tactile ingenuity involved at this budget level.

• Remaking a Classic (02:44–03:09):
  Takal discusses how the original 1970s Canadian slasher inspired her, but her version sets the story in 2019, centering on the threat of toxic masculinity.

  “Black Christmas is a remake... set now in 2019. That's a modern take on the threat of toxic masculinity in the form of a slasher movie.”
  — Sophia Takal (02:44)

• Meta-commentary on Safety and Misogyny (04:47–06:23):
  Takal wanted the film to externalize the feeling of unease that many women face, especially after #MeToo.

  “You can never really feel totally like you've beaten misogyny. ...I wanted to make a movie that kind of captured that uneasiness that I felt. And I think a lot of other women I knew felt of not knowing, like, not ever knowing, feeling safe.”
  — Sophia Takal (05:14)

• Purpose of Horror (04:47–05:17):
  Takal frames horror as a genre for externalizing anxiety, providing catharsis when characters survive dangers mirroring real societal threats.

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2. Jason Blum on Socially Conscious Horror

• Origins of “Black Christmas” Collaboration (07:09–08:40):
  Jason Blum reflects on spotting Takal’s talent through her work in Into the Dark. The opportunity to remake Black Christmas as a “feminist take on a very sexist... slasher movie” came serendipitously.

  “Her eyes got really wide, but she never wavered, you know, and she did it. And I'm very proud of that. The movie is really like a feminist take on a very sexist, you know, slasher movie.”
  — Jason Blum (08:15)

• Mission of Blumhouse (08:40–09:26):
  While Blumhouse films often have social causes at their core, Blum stresses their process is organic rather than agenda-driven:

  “We rarely...find a cause and try and marry a movie to it... I'm a political person. I'm attracted to things that have something to say.”
  — Jason Blum (08:55)

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3. Blum’s Path to Horror—a Mix of Art and Business

• Personal Journey & Industry Lessons (09:29–11:38):
  Blum fell into horror with Paranormal Activity after years unsure of his place in Hollywood; it was the ultimate indie success—a $15K movie earning nearly $200M.

  “I made one [studio movie] called the Tooth Fairy, starred the Rock... process frustrating... The making of a studio movie...there was so much pressure on every decision. ...What Paranormal Activity did was coalesce those two lives that I had. It was the ultimate independent movie released by the most traditional of studios.”
  — Jason Blum (09:37)

• Why Low-Budget = Creative Freedom (12:45–13:43):
  Blum credits the low budget model as key to innovation and risk-taking—exemplified by giving Jordan Peele control over Get Out.

  “When you're making expensive movies... the only way to greenlight the movie is to have movies that the movie you're green lighting feels similar to.”
  — Jason Blum (12:50)

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4. The Ending of "Get Out" and the Importance of Audience Reception

• Changing the Ending (13:53–15:39):
  Blum recounts persuading Peele to change Get Out’s bleak final scene to allow audiences hope, given the film’s pioneering themes.

  “You can't ask the audience to digest something they've never seen before and then punch them in the face... There's so much new going on in that movie.”
  — Jason Blum (14:57)

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5. Themes and Evolution of Modern Horror

• Trending Themes (15:39–16:19):
  Identity—including gender, race, and social status—is now central. Movies like The Purge explore gun control; filmmakers are waiting for a climate change horror hit.

  “Seems to be very strong, a ton of identity... gun control... The Purge is about gun control.”
  — Jason Blum (16:00)

• What Makes Horror Scary? (16:22–17:49):
  Blum insists it's not the jump scares alone, but the social tension between them—referencing Get Out’s deer scene.

  “What makes horror movies scary is what's in between the scares. Not so much the scares.”
  — Jason Blum (17:36)

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6. The Enduring Appeal and Business of Horror

• Communal Experience (18:13–18:51):
  Horror thrives at the box office because people crave the communal fear and excitement—like a “roller coaster” for the mind.

  “It's much, much scarier to watch a horror movie in a movie theater than at home.”
  — Jason Blum (18:41) “Same reason you want to take a roller coaster... It raises your adrenaline.”
  — Jason Blum (18:52)

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7. Diversity at Blumhouse

• Representation and Business Sense (19:03–19:57):
  Blum argues hiring women and people of color is good business, as they reflect the actual horror audience (55% women, 45% men).

  “We hire it because it reflects our audience... You want to have the storytellers reflect your audience.”
  — Jason Blum (19:42)

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8. Controversy Over “The Hunt”

• A Movie Shelved (20:22–22:01):
  The Hunt was pulled after mass shootings, highlighting the sensitivity around violence and politics in America. Blum hopes audiences will see it one day.

  “Looking back at it, I still think it was the right decision because it was the wrong time in the country for that movie.”
  — Jason Blum (21:10)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Externalizing Anxiety:
  “The reason horror is so popular is because it takes her everyday anxieties and dread and externalizes them for us and allows us to witness the character going through it and usually surviving.”
  — Sophia Takal (04:47)

• Blum on Creative Freedom:
  “By making low budget movies... We can read a script and we can say, first of all, I like it. And second of all, it feels like nothing I've ever seen.”
  — Jason Blum (13:35)

• On the Business of Diversity:
  “We hire it because it’s great business. We hire it because it reflects our audience.”
  — Jason Blum (19:42)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Set Recording & Takal’s Reflections: 01:46–06:23
• Jason Blum on Collaborating with Takal: 07:09–08:40
• Blumhouse’s Socially Conscious Origins: 08:40–09:26
• Blum’s Path to Horror: 09:29–11:38
• Creative Freedom in Low Budget Filmmaking: 12:45–13:43
• Changing Get Out’s Ending: 13:53–15:39
• Modern Horror Themes: 15:39–16:19
• What Scares Us in Movies: 16:22–17:49
• Communal Fear in Horror: 18:13–18:51
• Diversity in Blumhouse’s Model: 19:03–19:57
• Controversy over The Hunt: 20:22–22:01

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Episode Takeaways

• Sophia Takal's Black Christmas aims to reframe the slasher genre as a vehicle for exploring gendered violence and unease in the #MeToo era.
• Jason Blum’s Blumhouse has pioneered low-budget, auteur-led, socially aware horror that challenges Hollywood norms both artistically and commercially.
• Horror as a genre is uniquely equipped to explore contemporary social anxieties, offering viewers both catharsis and commentary.
• The rise of communal entertainment experiences—and the power of representation behind and in front of the camera—are shaping the future of horror cinema.

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Transcript

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[Dorothy Wickenden]

I'm Dorothy Wickenden. On today's Politics and More podcast, we'll hear from writer and director Sophia Takal. Takal's new film Black Christmas reimagines the slasher movie genre for the MeToo era. Then David Remnick talks with the film's producer, Jason Blum, the founder of Blumhouse Films. Blumhouse is behind a slate of low budget, socially conscious horror movies, including Jordan Peele's Get Out.

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

So let's keep rolling. Are we still rolling? Still rolling.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

Lots of snow, please.

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

Alright. Still rolling. Still rolling. All right, guys, let's cut it looks great.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

It looks good.

[Jason Blum]

Really?

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

All right, guys, let's shoot.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

We're starting out today on a movie set. A huge sound stage near the waterfront in Brooklyn where a young director named Sophia Takal is working. She's finishing up shooting her biggest project to date.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

And we're gonna go. Wait, Cat. We're gonna go back to Inside the car.

[Actor (Character in Black Christmas)]

Inside the car.

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

Inside the car. On Riley.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

Okay.

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

Kat, you loving this window? Yes, we love the window.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

We love the window.

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

All right, guys. Very Quiet. Cell phone still off, please. Anybody on set, make sure your cell phone is off. And rolling sound.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Takal and her crew are working on a movie coming out in just a few months. It's a slasher film, actually. She's one of a cohort of young filmmakers who are changing the genre, basing horror plots on some very contemporary issues.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

Black Christmas is a remake of a 1970s Canadian horror film that sort of invented the slasher genre. But this is a version set now in 2019. That's a modern take on the threat of toxic masculinity in the form of a slasher movie.

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

So, guys, it's going to be the same cue for the car pulling over that slide. Oh, there you are. There you are.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

Right now, we are lighting this car scene. What they're going to do is make the lights look as if they were, like, driving through street lamps. So they have to add all these different lamps that are going to change color. And there's people with fans to blow fake snow made of diapers to make it look like it's snowing because we're inside a building and two of the characters have escaped from the house where there's been a killer trying to get after them. And they're kind of just like trying to figure out what the hell is going on because they have no idea who's trying to kill him.

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

Okay, guys, rehearsal is up. Here comes snow light gag and car shaking and windshield vipers.

[Actor (Character in Black Christmas)]

What are we gonna tell them? I'd like to remind you we just killed three people, possessed or not, and they are lying dead in our house right now.

It was self defense.

You want to count on the cops believing that? They didn't believe me when I told them about what Brian did to me. Why on earth do they believe us? You really want to count on the cops believing us? You don't even believe me. I thought that you were a fighter.

I've been fighting this whole time. Where have you been? Maybe if you decided you wanted to fight a little bit earlier, we wouldn't be in this situation. And now you want me to go on a suicide mission because you finally woke up and decided that now's the time to fight.

Pull over. Pull the car over.

Chris, sit. Riley.

[Jason Blum]

Riley, stop.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

Keep rolling. I want to go again right away.

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

Can we reset the snow and the car and the light, please?

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

Oh, yeah. It's a story about a group of friends who are all in a sorority together and who are staying at their sorority over winter break. And slowly, one by one, the women get murdered. And then the women who survive have to figure out who's trying to kill them and why. I mean, I feel like the reason horror is so popular is because it takes her everyday anxieties and dread and externalizes them for us and allows us to witness the character going through it and usually surviving. Can I just see you lift towards. Thank you. Oh, it's gorgeous. So in early 2019, after the MeToo movement had sort of called out a bunch of bad dudes, I started to feel like a lot of those same men were coming back into positions of power, getting book deals, going into, like, going and performing comedy and doing all this stuff. I had an uneasy feeling, like maybe things aren't changing as much as we thought they were. And so when they approached me about Black Christmas and asked if I wanted to do it, when I rewatched the movie, the feeling I had watching it was like, oh, yeah, you can never really feel totally like you've beaten misogyny. And I wanted to make a movie that kind of captured that uneasiness that I felt. And I think a lot of other women I knew felt of not knowing, like, not ever knowing, feeling safe. And so in this movie, the women aren't really ever given, like, a rest. They always have to keep fighting. That was fantastic. I'm good to move on. If everyone else is.

[Cat (Assistant Director or Crew Member)]

Check the gate. On a good gate, we're gonna turn.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

Around and we're gonna go, wait, Cat.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

We're gonna go back to director Sofia Takal on the set of Black Christmas. Tikal's description of how horror can address some very real issues might remind you of the 2017 film Get Out. Jordan Peele's movie is a fantastic scare movie, and it's also one of the smartest films about racism in our time. It was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The producer behind Sofia Takal's movies and get out and many other films is Jason Blum. Blum is the founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions. So, Jason, we just heard from Sofia Takal, who's directing Black Christmas, a film that you're producing, and it comes out in just a few months, right?

[Jason Blum]

Yeah. Friday the 13th in December. Friday the 13th are few and far between on a very important date to Blumhouse.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

So you don't see it as a jinx?

[Jason Blum]

No, it's the opposite. It's a great benefit to box office.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Maybe you should, like, you know, cross a black cat's path and walk under a ladder or something like that and do that.

[Jason Blum]

But I do that too. Before the movies come out, I give.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

You these tips for free.

[Jason Blum]

Of course. Thank you.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

How did you and Sophia, how did this project come about?

[Jason Blum]

So, Safiya, we have an amazing. We make these movies for Hulu in a series called into the Dark. And the movies are scary movies based on holidays throughout the calendar year. Scary Valentine's Day, Scary Christmas, scary Fourth of July, scary Mother's Day, scary Father's Day. And we have the kind of benefit with these movies is to try working with younger, newer filmmakers. And Sofia directed a movie called New Year, New youw, which was our New Year's Day scary movie. And I thought it was really one of the stronger ones of the movies that we had made. So we asked her. It was actually kind of an amazing thing. We were pitched a remake of Black Christmas. We had a Friday the 13th in December, and in March. I think it was in March. I went to Sofia, I said, I really loved your movie. We have this unbelievable opportunity to remake this movie, Black Christmas in a lunatic time frame. Is that something you want to tackle? And her eyes got really wide, but she never wavered, you know, and she did it. And I'm very proud of that. The movie is really like a feminist take on a very sexist, you know, slasher movie.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

So that is your signature. It's become your signature that somehow inscribed in these genre movies, in these horror movies, that there's a cause. Were you specifically looking to make a movie that was influenced by the MeToo moment?

[Jason Blum]

No, but when she had the idea, it was very exciting to me. Like, as soon as we rarely, like, find a cause and try and marry a movie to it, we really look to.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

It's organic.

[Jason Blum]

Yeah, it's organic. And I think. I don't even say to our filmmakers, you know, we're only looking for horror movies that are. That have a cause. But we're. I'm a political person. We're attracted. I'm attracted to things that have something to say. So not all the movies, but most of the movies that we do, there's some social message or some more to it behind the movie than just a bunch of scares.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Jason, why did you get so heavily into horror movies?

[Jason Blum]

I got heavily into horror because I fell into paranormal activity at 35, and I'd been kicking around trying to find a place for myself in the movie business for 15 years. And I wasn't comfortable in studio film and I wasn't comfortable in independent film. The making of a studio movie. I made one called the Tooth Fairy, starred the Rock. It was a 60 million, $65 million movie. Even at that price, I found the. The process frustrating. There were a lot of people involved. There was so much money involved that there was so much pressure on every decision. I thought there was antithetic, the creative process. You gotta be loose. You gotta kinda have fun. On the flip side, I loved the process of making independent movies. The money was lower. The pressures were different. There was much more freedom. There was much more independence. And so what Paranormal Activity did was coalesce those two lives that I had. It was the ultimate independent movie released by the most traditional of studios, Paramount and Paranormal Activity.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

How much that costs to make?

[Jason Blum]

15,000 to make. 200 million came in. Or 193, depending on who you count.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

I think that's what's called a good profit margin.

[Crew Member or Assistant]

It's here. What's here? What? What are you talking about?

[Jason Blum]

I don't know. I feel it.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

I feel it breathing on me.

[Actor (Character in Black Christmas)]

I got.

[Jason Blum]

Come on, come on, please. And I was lucky enough that this success happened when I was old enough to realize I was a small part of it. If it happened when I was 22, I would have thought I was all of it. And I didn't take the bait. I didn't listen to the advice I got from people, which was, you gotta make a big movie. You made this low, low budget scary movie. You gotta make a big genre movie, right? I said, no, you know, I wanna see if I can do this. I want to see if I can make independent movies released by studios. And if you look at the what, the nexus of independent movies released by studios, what works in that, that description are horror movies.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Did you like horror movies going in? Was that something that was a special obsession as a young guy?

[Jason Blum]

No, I liked movies generally. I was not a horror. I always say I wasn't a horror movie. Cinematic. I wasn't like Quentin. I wasn't like Eli Roth or whatever. No, I really love movies. But as I got into it, I discovered what, you know, on the movie side I was built to do. You know, I was always a weirdo growing up. Halloween was my favorite holiday. I was an outsider growing up. And I definitely found my people after Paranormal Activity and I stuck with it. I stuck with it for 15 years.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Did you have favorite horror movies?

[Jason Blum]

My favorite filmmaker, if there was any indication, I think my favorite filmmaker was and still is Hitchcock. Depending on if you put it into thriller or horror, which I think is, you know, I think. I think people who don't like horror movies, but like some of them call Them thrillers. So you Get Out. My favorite thing about get out is I hate horror movies, but I love Get Out. So newsflash. You don't hate horror movies because get out is a horror movie. But to justify, they say get out was a thriller, but get out is totally a horror movie.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

How did it come to you?

[Jason Blum]

It came to us because the. The Sean McKittrick, who was the original producer on the movie, Jordan, had pitched the movie to him. They had commissioned a script. They were trying to get it made for a higher number. We all read Get Out. We came to our Monday meeting. We said, this is. I think we like this. I think it's good. But it's definitely new. Definitely. No one has seen it before. There's so many benefits to low budget, but one of the great benefits is when you're making expensive movies. The only way to greenlight the movie is to have movies that the movie that you're green lighting feels similar to that have been released in the last five years. And then we all ask each other, why do so many movies from Hollywood feel similar? Well, they have to go through that process by making low budget movies, by giving control to someone like Jordan Peele, which we did by saying, listen, we love this. You know, bet on yourself. We're only gonna give you this amount of money. We could do the opposite. We can read a script and we can say, first of all, I like it. And second of all, it feels like nothing I've ever seen.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

And so I heard that you decided to change the ending from what Jordan Peele had originally planned. What was the original ending and why did you feel it needed to be different? What's that conversation like?

[Jason Blum]

We screened the movie and the movie ended. And Daniel. Daniel's in jail. The lead character is in jail.

[Crew Member or Assistant]

Chris, I really need to impress on you the importance of remembering some of those names. Okay? The fire didn't leave us much to work with. I don't remember. All right, look, now just take it from the top. Walk me through it again. Right? I'm good. I stopped him. You know, I stopped him.

[Jason Blum]

The movie ended. I ran up to Jordan. There were other people around. I said, jordan, you can't do that. I said, the movie is too good. Daniel's performance is too good. The audience was with it and just so with the movie.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

And they were just bummed to see it.

[Jason Blum]

They were so sad. They were so sad.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

But it's a horror movie in some sense. Isn't it supposed to end with some.

[Jason Blum]

You can't. We have a Lot of movies with sad endings. I don't know if you've ever seen a Purge movie. Everyone ends worse than the next, I'll say. But you can't ask the audience to digest something they've never seen before and then punch him in the face, which I felt like is what Jordan was doing. There's so much new going on in that movie. I just felt in my bones. You couldn't ask them to accept and embrace that and then take it all away from them. And Jordan, he said very little. He said, I hear what you're saying. Let me think about it, you know. But I clearly. He processed what I said, and he wanted Daniel to wind up in a positive way, not in a negative way. And then he wrote a new end for the movie which we shot.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Jason. Certain eras had various themes that were inundating the horror films of their time with the kind of paranoia of the Cold War, the nasty violence that you used to see in kind of the Saw era horror films. What are the themes that are at work now? They seem to be identity.

[Jason Blum]

Seems to be very strong, a ton of identity. So we talked about it earlier, but our movie Black Christmas is really a woman's version, a woman's perspective on the very sexist slasher movies of the 70s and 80s. I think most of all, identity. And then I think, you know, gun control, the purges about gun control.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

You think climate change is a theme of horror films?

[Jason Blum]

It hasn't. It's def. There's gonna be a great climate change horror movie. We haven't seen it yet. There have been climate change movies, horror movies that haven't touched a nerve for whatever reason. We made one. We made one. Barry Levinson directed a movie for us called the Bay. He was gonna make a documentary about the pol. Chesapeake Bay. And he called his agent said, I want to make a documentary. His agent said, no one's ever going to see a documentary about the looting of Chesapeake Bay. Why don't you make a horror movie? You know, it's a kind of a side note here, but one of the tricky things about horror is people who don't understand respect. Like, pick one of the above. Horror. You could always tell if an executive isn't really a horror movie fan, and they're just kind of in it for the money because they say to me, well, what are the scares in your movie? What are the scares? So the truth of the matter is there are really only 15 scares, period. There's the, like, for instance, in get out the deer stuff jumping out the Deer hitting the window. Now, the deer hitting the window has been in 9 million movies. In 8,999,999. It wasn't that scary in get out. You jump out of your seat. Why? Because there's a conversation between an African American man and a white woman who we're dating about race, and she's going to visit the white family. And you're like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. We're the drama. You're so tense. Then throw a deer at the window, you jump out of your seat. So what makes horror movies scary is what's in between the scares. Not so much the scares.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

The horror films you produce aren't niche genre films. Some flop occasionally once in a while, but your record is pretty good. And some projects stay pretty small. But a lot of what you work on goes on to make very serious money at the box office. Why is there so much energy behind horror films in particular right now?

[Jason Blum]

You know, I'm tempted to say society is so in turmoil, it reflects society. I think that's a little bit true. But I think what's more true is that there's a real shift, which is even, you know, and this. Horror movies have been doing well for longer than this, but I think they're on an upward trajectory of communal experience. Going to the movies fits into that category.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Why do people want to be scared together?

[Jason Blum]

You want to be. It's much scarier. It's much scarier to be in a room with a bunch of people. You can feel everyone. It's much, much scarier to watch a. Watch a horror movie in a movie theater than at home. Much, much scarier.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

But why do you want to be scared at all?

[Jason Blum]

At all? The same reason you want to take a roller coaster or jump out of an airplane. It raises your adrenaline. Everyone has their adrenaline raised in different ways, but some people get it from scary movies.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Blumhouse and you, Jason, are known for the diversity of the people you work with. And you've been very good also about not patting yourself on the back about this.

[Jason Blum]

I hate when people do that.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

So tell me about your thinking on this question. You have employed a lot of people of color, women who are directing films under your umbrella. How does that come about? And why isn't it happening more generally?

[Jason Blum]

Yeah. On our Amazon series now I'm gonna pat my back. Is all underrepresented directors, 50%, you know, all. All eight directors. First of all, why we do it. We do it because beyond it's being.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

The right thing to do, I. Yeah.

[Jason Blum]

I don't do it for that reason. We hire it because it's great business. We hire it because it reflects our audience. Our horror movies audience is made up 55% women, 45% men. Young girl, teenage girls drag their friends, boys and girls, to horror movies, not the other way around.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

No kidding.

[Jason Blum]

100%. You want to have the storytellers reflect your audience. So that's why we do it. Another benefit that people have caught up now, but another benefit is those. Because those people have been prejudiced against in the past. They're very talented people who are from an underrepresented group, and they're not getting hired. And we're like, come work here now. That's not really true anymore. It's just not true. And that is a good thing.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Jason Blumhouse produced a movie called the Hunt, and it was sort of a. I don't know, maybe this is unfair, but a darker version of the Hunger Games. It's about a group of elites that hunts people for sport. Your idea is incredible.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

I can't argue with that.

[Crew Member or Assistant]

We pay for everything.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

This country belongs to us.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

It's just business. Hunting human beings for sport.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

They're not human beings.

[Jason Blum]

Every year, a bunch of elites kidnapped.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

And a few months before it was set to be released, Universal canceled it after the mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso. And now I've only seen the trailer for the Hunt and know a little bit about it, but I'm not quite sure why that would be the case.

[Jason Blum]

Well, it was a. It was a collective decision. We all made it together. And looking back at it, I still think it was the right decision because it was the wrong time in the country for that movie.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Is it ever the right time? There are mass shootings all the time. I mean, it never stops.

[Jason Blum]

You're right. And we face that on the Purge, too. But that weekend fell into even another category for the US which is saying a lot. I do think there's a right time for the Hunt. I think the violence in America and politics got conflated in an incredibly unusual way. The politics of the movie are quite different than what was represented in the trailer. And one of my big goals for 20 on the film side of our business is to. Is to get that movie out. And I hope we'll be successful in doing it because I'd love people to see the film.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

I hope the times allow it.

[Jason Blum]

I hope they do. You're right about that, Jason.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

Thank you.

[Jason Blum]

Thank you.

[Interviewer (possibly David Remnick)]

That was film producer Jason Blum, the CEO of Blumhouse.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

America is changing, and.

[Asma Khalid]

So is the world.

[Jason Blum]

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Jason Blum]

Tristan Redman in London. And this is the Global Story.

[Director or Crew Member (possibly Sophia Takal or Assistant Director)]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Jason Blum]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Crew Member or Assistant]

From.

[Actor (Character in Black Christmas)]

PRX.