‘If Blumhouse Is In A Slump, I’d Like To Tell That Story.’ Jason Blum Gets Real About M3GAN 2.0 Flopping And Other Missteps

To adapt an old saying into modern times, victory has many parents, while failure is an orphan. Operating under that analogy, one could say that Blumhouse producer Jason Blum has become a father to four 2025 movie schedule flops. That’s because rather than shying away from M3GAN 2.0's box office stumble, he went into painstaking detail about what he thinks went wrong, as only he could.

Jason Blum Got Honest About Why He Had To Talk About The Blumhouse Slump

Surprisingly, Blum called the host of The Town with Matthew Belloni to set up the interview that allowed him to do just that. Welcomed by the veteran journalist and founding partner of Puck, the producer of Paranormal Activity and Sinister made his case for doing so, with these blunt remarks:

Going on to talk about how many Hollywood movers and shakers only share their lessons from failure when the next success comes around, Jason Blum opted to own up “right in the middle of the pain.” Which, to be fair, he admits he’s allowed to do thanks to Blumhouse not being a publicly traded company.

Now, the explanation for why this conversation took place is just as refreshing as the extensive post-mortem Blum engaged in.

M3GAN 2.0’s Failure Came Down To Three Things, According To Jason Blum

While the conversation that followed applies to the recent flameout of M3GAN 2.0, it can be applied to Wolf Man, The Woman in the Yard, and Drop as well. So far, this year’s Blumhouse releases have left the production house without a #1 hit, forming the “slump” that seems to be in play.

In the process of owning M3GAN 2.0’s underwhelming $10.2 million domestic opening, Jason Blum isolated the blame game with these caveats:

The three key failures of this Blumhouse horror movie were, in Mr. Blum’s opinion, genre swapping, acting like a summer tentpole, and execution. That last part comes with the caveat that while series director Gerard Johnstone can “solve almost anything you can throw at him,” he needs the time to do it.

To the director's credit, Johnstone's genre-hopping explanation in his interview with CinemaBlend's Sarah El-Mahmoud may have helped offset that factor. Alas, the lack of time, plus an ineffective push for the same social media glory M3GAN won in 2022, only contributed to this perfect storm of imperfection.

Jason Blum Thinks Horror Needs To Go Bigger To Survive

This year is one of the most ambitious frames on the books for Blumhouse, with eight pictures in total on the docket. The good news going forward is that Jason Blum still has a lot of confidence for the upcoming Blumhouse movies heading our way, which includes The Black Phone 2 and the hotly hyped Five Nights at Freddy's 2.

Such optimism comes from his observation that while Blumhouse may not be having a good year, horror has seen glorious hits like Sinners, Final Destination Bloodlines, and 28 Years Later. Taking that inspiration, the Insidious franchise producer offered this important piece of strategy:

For Jason Blum, the pre-COVID days of numerous horror movies being able to compete are gone, with an uncertainty toward whether or not they’ll return. Which, in turn, may be setting off alarm bells for how the upcoming M3GAN spin-off SOULM8TE should be handled. Not everyone will agree with what he’s had to say, as is the law of the land for any sort of business analysis.

Keeping that in mind, it shouldn’t be a stretch for people to agree that calling out his own mistake is a bold move that shows growth. Here’s hoping that growth somehow finds its way to M3GAN 2.0’s box office fortunes, as the film enters its second weekend in theaters.