Cultural Diversity Roster

Blum’s micro-budget model for his film business gives directors full creative control and pays above the line talent union scale with back-end bonuses in success, giving everyone skin in the game. In his talks, Blum discusses the advantages of straying from convention, the unexpected freedoms of working within constraints and allowing talent to work unencumbered.

As Founder of Blumhouse Productions, Blum has produced the highly-profitable franchises Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Insidious, and Sinister along with low-budget blockbusters including David Gordon Green’s Halloween, M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, and Jordan Peele’s Us and Get Out, which launched Peele’s directorial career and earned him an Oscar. Blum also gave Oscar-winning filmmaker Damien Chazelle and Joel Edgerton their big breaks with Whiplash and The Gift respectively.

Blum developed his micro-budget model in 2007 with the original Paranormal Activity, which was made for $15,000 and grossed close to $200 million worldwide, making it the most profitable film in Hollywood history, based on ROI. More recently, Get Out, which was produced for $4.5 million went on to gross $255 million worldwide. In total, Blumhouse’s films have grossed $3.8 billion at the global box office.

In 2017, Blum expanded the TV side of his business by launching an indie studio, which today is behind such high-profile projects as Sharp Objects for HBO, The Purge for USA Network and Into the Dark, a first of its kind monthly horror anthology series for hulu. Blumhouse Television is currently in production on a limited series for Showtime on former Fox News Chief Roger Ailes based on journalist Gabriel Sherman’s best-seller The Loudest Voice in the Room with Russell Crowe as Ailes.

During his career, Blum has been nominated for two Academy Awards for producing Whiplash and Get Out. He has also been nominated for two Tony Awards for the Broadway plays Three Tall Women and The Iceman Cometh. In television, Blum won two Emmy Awards for HBO’s The Normal Heart and The Jinx. He also won two Peabody Awards for The Jinx and the documentary How to Dance in Ohio. A staple on Vanity Fair’s New Establishment list, Blum was also named one of TIME’s “100 Most Influential People” in 2017, and Business Insider’s ten people transforming media in 2019. In addition, he received the 2017 Industry Tribute from the Gotham Awards and was named CinemaCon’s Producer of the Year for 2016.

Today, Blumhouse’s multi-platform offerings include BH Tilt, a distribution company that takes advantage of new marketing strategies; Blumhouse Books, a publishing imprint with Doubleday; the digital genre network CryptTV; and Blumhouse Live which produces live scary event for companies like AB InBev.

Blum has produced over 100 films and TV series over the course of his career, including The Reader, for which Kate Winslet won an Academy Award; Hysterical Blindness, starring Uma Thurman and garnering her a Golden Globe; and BlacKkKlansman, directed by Spike Lee and nominated for six Oscars.

Blum is a member of the Sundance Institute’s Director’s Advisory Group. He also serves on the Board of the Public Theater and the Board of Trustees of Vassar College and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.