Jason Blum is walking back his comments in a recent interview that there are “not a lot of women directors” and that there are “even less who are inclined” to make horror films.
In a tweet posted Wednesday night, the Blumhouse Productions founder and CEO writes, “Thank you everyone for calling me out on my dumb comments in that interview. I made a stupid mistake,” he writes. “I spoke too quickly about a serious issue — an issue that I am passionate about.”
The producer of this weekend’s Halloween added that 50 percent of Blumhouse Productions’ audience is female, and that 50 percent of the companies executives are as well. He tipped his hat to successful franchises starring women, including this weekend’s Halloween, a sequel to the 1978 hit horror film starring Jamie Lee Curtis.
“But we have not done a good enough job working with female directors, and it’s not because they don’t exist,” Blum continued. “I heard from many today. The way my passion came out was dumb. And for that I am sorry. I will do better.”
The inciting comment came from a Polygon interview in which Blum was asked about hiring a woman to direct one of his production house’s films. “We’re always trying to that,” he told the publication. “We’re not trying to do it because of recent events. We’ve always been trying.”
Blum then added, “There are not a lot of female directors period, and even less who are inclined to do horror,” Blum says. He added that he admires The Babadook director Jennifer Kent and had offered her films; per the story, he struggled to remember the name of Honeymoon director Leigh Janiak’s, to whom he said he had also reached out.
Read Blum’s full tweet below.
— Jason Blum (@jason_blum) October 18, 2018
