Last weekend when AMC CEO Adam Aron let the cat out of the bag, that his circuit was charging more for The Batman in its first eight days than other titles on the marquee, some producers grumbled.
Not Jason Blum.
“Theaters are experimenting with pricing, which I think is great,” Blum told us at Deadline’s SXSW Studio, “I think they should and are entitled to do that.”
“I think it depends on the movie and it depends on the environment too,” the genre-meister producer added, unoffended that superhero films are apt to go for higher prices than his genre movies in the future, “If more people are able to see the things that we make, that makes me happy.”
“It’s strange that you pay $15 whether the movie cost $1M or $250M,” said Blum, “It’s something to experiment with. If my movie is less expensive, the hope is that more people will get up to see it.”
In The Batman‘s second weekend, the top three exhibitors dropped their price on the DC movie from last weekend, and it didn’t curb bucks at the box office, the pic easing only -51% for a great $66M this past weekend.
In regards to the whole theatrical-day-and-date brouhaha during the pandemic, Blum as a producer remains agnostic on the medium rivalry between theatrical and streaming, and believes genre will win out either way. Blumhouse’s Halloween Kills went theatrical day-and-date on Peacock on the OTT service’s paid tier, and made a healthy $92M domestic, and drew in 2.8M viewers in its first 30 days per Samba TV. Blumhouse’s next day-and-date Peacock event is the rebooted feature take of Stephen King’s Firestarter on May 13.
“I’m totally open to theatrical day and date; I think there’s no one size fits all,” he says about distribution models, “The environment is rapidly changing.”
“There’s more attention on genre as a way to entice eyeballs; that’s good for Blumhouse,” adds the 3x Oscar nominated producer.
Blumhouse recently boarded Beth de Araújo’s SXSW thriller Soft & Quiet about a social circle of sophisticated Aryan women who take their beliefs a bit too far. It’s a pic in the wheelhouse of other Blumhouse socially riveting pics as the Oscar-winning Get Out and the controversial The Hunt. As Deadline first reported, Blumhouse boarded the movie to sell with CAA Media Finance at SXSW.
“I haven’t done it in a long time: Seen a movie that I felt like we could put turbo-fuel in its marketing and distribution. I saw the movie and was incredibly compelled. The movie makes you feel very uncomfortable. I think Beth is an incredible filmmaker with a super, super strong voice.”
Next up in Blumhouse’s queue is The Exorcist for 2023 and the big screen take of videogame Five Nights at Freddy’s as he teases above.