With two horror films from YouTube-bred directors dominating the May box office, Jason Blum and James Wan used Saturday’s Produced By Conference to declare that the genre is thriving — and that their combined studio intends to own that momentum for decades to come.
The Blumhouse-Atomic Monster chiefs opened the conference at Universal Studios lot, sitting down with PGA President Stephanie Allain to assess cinema’s post-COVID recovery and lay out their ambitions for the company, which officially merged in January 2024 and now spans film, television, gaming, and live events. The backdrop was hard to ignore: Obsession, from 26-year-old YouTuber Curry Barker, is in its third week and has become the first film outside of Christmas since 1982 to grow in both its second and third weekends, while Backrooms, from 20-year-old Kane Parsons, was on track for the biggest opening in A24 history.
Blum credited the anxiety that has gripped Hollywood since the pandemic for making the moment feel all the more remarkable. “Since COVID, there’s been this lethargic feeling around theatrical — is it relevant anymore, is it going to survive?” he said. “What I think is so incredible about Obsession and Backrooms is that they’re a new kind of movie. They’re made by non-traditional directors, directors who really honed their skills as creators online.”
Wan, whose own directing credits stretch from Saw to The Conjuring and Insidious, spoke about the lineage he sees in the new generation. “I’ve been a horror fan since I was a kid, and so naturally I grew up on a steady diet of horror movies through the ’80s and ’90s, inspired by great filmmakers like John Carpenter and Wes Craven,” he said. “Today we kind of mimic that model. And here we are. I say this to anyone who will listen: The horror genre keeps saving our industry.”
The pair also revealed that their pipeline leans further into the YouTube-to-Hollywood trend. Blumhouse-Atomic Monster is producing a Blair Witch Project reboot for Lionsgate, directed by Dylan Clark — a filmmaker who built his following through low-budget horror shorts on YouTube — with a fall shoot scheduled on a reported $10 million budget. Original stars Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams will serve as executive producers alongside original directors Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick.
Asked about the company’s long-term direction, Blum set out a clear target: “The Disney of horror” within five years. It is a striking ambition from a studio that has built its reputation on low budgets and first-time directors — a model the current box office suggests remains, for the moment, very much working.
