Jason Blum Apologizes For Comments About the Lack of Female Horror Directors
Michael Myers has killed his victims in many different ways: Stabbing, slashing, strangling. I know he smooshed one guy’s head with his foot like it was a pumpkin. I’m not sure he’s ever killed someone by sticking his foot in their mouth, but perhaps in his next movie he can do that, drawing inspiration from his new film’s producer, Jason Blum. Blum, head of the extremely successful horror production company Blumhouse, gave some extremely ill-advised quotes to Polygon this week about his unsuccessful search to find a female director to make a horror film for him.
Blum insisted he’d made numerous attempts to convince Jennifer Kent (director of The Babadook) and Leigh Janiak (whose name he couldn’t remember until it was jogged by an assistant and another Blumhouse executive) to direct something at his studio. Buuuuuut he also said “there are not a lot of female directors period, and even less who are inclined to do horror,” which is definitely not accurate.
It didn’t take long for Blum to issue an apology on social media, saying “I am sorry. I will do better.”
I have absolutely no idea what “The way my passion came out was dumb,” means. His passion for what?
I guess it’s good Blum recognizes that Blumhouse has some serious room for improvement in this area. The proof is in the pudding, though. Apologies are all well and good, but they’re absolutely meaningless if Blumhouse doesn’t actually hire someone of the female persuasion to make a horror movie.