Jason Blum’s Blumhouse and James Wan’s Atomic Monster in Advanced Talks to Merge
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Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions and James Wan’s Atomic Monster are in advanced talks to merge and join forces, potentially bringing together two horror powerhouses in the industry.
Both Blum and Wan spoke with The New York Times Wednesday about the possibility of a merger, discussing how they would be perfect counterparts of artist and businessman, having each shepherded franchises or box office hits such as “Paranormal Activity” and “Get Out” on Blumhouse’s end and “The Conjuring” and “Saw” universes for Wan’s Atomic Monster.
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While no deal is finalized and both parties are still at the beginning of talks, an individual with knowledge of the conversations told IndieWire that if a deal were to close, both Blumhouse and Atomic Monster would continue to operate at separate labels, but with Atomic Monster having a first-look deal with Universal Pictures. Wan’s company ended its first-look deal with Warner Bros. in June, while Blumhouse currently has a first-look deal with Universal that runs until summer 2024.
The move would theoretically allow each company to boost their output of films, while giving Atomic Monster the freedom to utilize Blumhouse’s existing infrastructure. Wan further discussed being hopeful about expanding into other realms such as podcasts, gaming, live experiences, and more.
The New York Times also noted that if a deal were to close, Wan would hold a substantial stake in Blumhouse, while Blum would still retain majority ownership of the company and Universal would be the third highest stakeholder.
Since 2004, Wan and Blumhouse as producers have a combined box office of $11.6 billion, with horror projects accounting for nearly $8.5 billion of that total. They’ll have a combined 15 major horror franchises to their name if they were to merge, including the “Halloween” movies, “The Purge” series, “Happy Death Day,” “Insidious” and Blumhouse’s upcoming trilogy based on the original “Exorcist” film.
Wan is also responsible for Blumhouse’s buzzy upcoming release “M3GAN,” opening January 6. He wrote the story alongside Akela Cooper about a robotic best friend gone wild.
On the TV side, Atomic Monster’s scripted television slate includes “MacGyver” and genre series “Swamp Thing,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” and Netflix’s “Archive 81,” and they also are expected to be entering into the unscripted space with several series in development. Blumhouse’s more successful series include “The Jinx,” “The Loudest Voice,” “The Good Lord Bird” and “The Thing About Pam.”
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