Blumhouse Names Universal Exec Abhijay Prakash as President
Jason Blum’s Blumhouse banner has a successor to Charles Layton as president.
Abhijay Prakash will follow Layton, an 8-year Blumhouse veteran, in overseeing the running of the production outfit. Prakash served as president of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, and before that was separately COO of DreamWorks Animation and Focus Features.
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Layton will become vice-chairman and stay on in a strategic and advisory role for the next two years.
“From my vantage point at Universal over the years, it was clear that nobody else in the business was as adept at figuring out how to create value from content as the Blumhouse team,” Prakash said in a statement on Monday.
“We are thrilled because it felt like the stars aligned for Abhijay to join us at a time when I was ready to pull back from the day to day and yet remain active, part-time as vice chairman,” said Layton in his own statement.
Blumhouse will release five movies theatrically this year, including The Black Phone from director Scott Derrickson. Other releases include Halloween Ends, BJ Novak’s directorial debut, Vengeance; and DASHCAM.
On the TV front, Blumhouse produced NBC’s The Thing About Pam, starring Renee Zellweger; and Netflix’s Worst Roommate Ever and the documentary Our Father.
