Special Guests Jason Blum & James Wan; Disclosure Day Reactions; Tribeca Festival Preview

12:10Anne Thompson:No. I mean, I like what he does, but it looks, you know, it's familiar to us. And it'll be very comfortable, like an old sweater for the older audience. You're right. The question is what the younger audience is going to do with it.

12:23Ryan Lattanzio:Totally. And I think if you've seen a few seasons of the X-Files, as I have many times, the story is familiar. But that doesn't mean, you know, like you're saying, it is comforting. That's not necessarily a negative.

12:35Anne Thompson:It's riveting. It's riveting. You go for it. But so, Ryan, we're actually going to rush to embrace our interview with the Blumhouse guys in a minute. But what's your recommendation for this week?

12:52Ryan Lattanzio:my recommendation is the apple tv series adaptation cape fear which um which adapts the scorsese movie and the original movie starring robert mitchum as well as the novel the executioners into a sleazy very violent lurid southern gothic summer spectacle where you can practically feel the sweat on you as you're watching it. And Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson play the couple who are lawyers that 17 years ago, they put Javier Bardem perhaps wrongly in jail, wrongly incarcerated him for a murder that he may or may not have committed. He's obviously a psychopath, but we don't know if he actually did this murder yet.

13:36Ryan Lattanzio:I'm three episodes in and now he is out of prison and fucking with them basically. And I don't know what's going to happen, but I, as a fan of those two movies. I, you know, this is a kind of a trashy show, I have to be honest, but it's, it's great fun. I'm really enjoying it. And the creator is Nick Antosca, but they brought all kinds of directors on, including Morton Tildom, as well as Trey Edward Schultz. So they have some interesting filmmakers. Oh yeah, those are good directors.

14:02Anne Thompson:You're making me want to see it.

14:04Ryan Lattanzio:You definitely should watch it.

14:05Anne Thompson:Yeah, I need something right now. I'm, I'm, I'm feeling the, the cupboard is is bare um well i may be a sucker for british world war ii flicks but i quite enjoyed pressure which stars the great andrew scott as a tightly wound meteorologist who has to forecast the weather for bombastic dwight d eisenhower who's played um with great fervor by brendan frazier before he can green light d-day it's fraught there's a lot at stake kennelie conrad is also solid. So I had fun with that one. That's out in theaters right now.

14:42Ryan Lattanzio:I got to catch up with that one. It may end up being on an airplane, but I will watch it at some point. I'm sure it deserves the big screen. All right. So next week, just as a reminder, everyone, we're going to do a live screen talk with Ronan Farrow at Tribeca. The event is free to Tribeca Pass holders at Spring Studios, which is the Tribeca Festival Hub in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, June 9th at 1 p.m. ET. So it's in the middle of the workday for some people, but hopefully you can check it out.

15:09Anne Thompson:We look forward to it. There's a lot to discuss with Ronan Farrow, if I may be so bold. I have plenty of questions for him. All right, see you later. Bye-bye. We are delighted to welcome back to the podcast Blumhouse Horror Meister, Jason Blum. I know you do other things, Jason. It's okay. You're still a Horror Meister. I love Horror Meister. It's fine. And it's a pleasure. to meet James Wan, his partner and the creator of The Saw and Insidious franchises. Understandably, you are both doing... Let's not leave out Conjuring. I mean, if we're going on the franchises, that was the biggest one. Is that the biggest one, really?

15:53Wrote and directed the first two movies. That's the biggest one.

15:56Anne Thompson:Okay. All right. And then you're both doing Victory Lapse over the two biggest horror hits of recent memory, Obsession and Backrooms. backrooms brought in an a24 record of 118 million worldwide on its opening weekend and on its third weekend obsession crossed the 100 million dollar mark and they both are from rookie 20-something filmmakers curry barker and kane parsons which who both got their start on youtube by the way i love those names those are great names i just want to say okay those are really really cool very cinematic names don't you think yeah those are director names that's like it's like luca guadagnino i mean how can you not direct great movies with that name or or guillermo del toro exactly exactly so people are i'm just going to launch the discussion with this um people are saying this weekend's unusual box office marks an enormous sea change in hollywood do you agree with that?

16:57Anne Thompson:And if so, how? Why? What could happen here?

17:02James Wan:Jason, I'll let you take that. I think there is a sea change. I think that there is a new generation of YouTube creators, not just the two movies this weekend, but really Five Nights at Freddy's goes back to it. Not that Scott was a YouTube creator, but there's this fanship and young people who've grown up primarily on their phone. And I think we in Hollywood have been trying to crack what gets them off their phone and into movie theaters. And I think we started to crack it.

17:57But I think what I hope is that the dam has broken and that and that we're going to see a bunch of what my favorite thing. there's so much talk about obsession in back rooms, but I don't think there's enough conversation back, you know, obsessions in original back rooms. There was existing IP this, that, but I don't think there's been enough of talk just creatively how strange and terrific and kind of cutting edge and weird these two movies are. And I think it's, it's, it, they're so unusual. I think both of these movies 10 years ago would have been seen as just very specialty oddball movies. I don't think they would have gotten any kind of real distribution.

18:43And I think that there's a really, really exciting moment for those of us who love to go see movies in movie theaters, that there's a new edginess to these movies. And the last thing I'll say, and I'm talking too much about it is, but there's a lot being made of creators segueing to movies. I think there's a specific reason why it's so much horror. Horror gives the men and women who do these movies much more control. If you segue from YouTube to low budget horror, you have an enormous, you maintain an enormous amount of control. If you segue from YouTube to an$80 million movie, you do not have the control.

19:27So you can't speak to your audience in the way that these folks are used to speaking to their audience. And horror, because it's very conducive to low budget, allows them the freedom to do their, to fly their freak flag and do these terrific, strange movies. And I think it's really something to celebrate. And there hasn't been a lot of innovation to celebrate in the theatrical marketplace for a while. The last, I think, recent memory is like Barbenheimer. And it's a great moment.

20:00Anne Thompson:Or everywhere at once. You know, everything everywhere at once. That one. Yeah. Oh, 100%. But that was like a one-off. And this is like a more, a bigger trend. But I agree with you completely.

20:12Ryan Lattanzio:uh the other thing that distinguishes the two movies uh just by my count is that obsession was definitely a scrappier production that didn't have the level of financing and a24 level support the backrooms did even though they're both you know low budget movies um so i wanted to start with obsession jason how rare is it for a movie like this to go up at the box office week after week usually the pattern is that horror movies drop a little bit uh you know this is not a horror Or a lot, exactly. And this week, not a horror movie, but we saw Mandalorian and Grogu drop quite a bit on its second weekend.

20:48It's, you know, for horror, it's almost unprecedented. Everyone is like very, I made a mistake of saying it's the first movie since E.T. to go up in consecutive weekends. it's the first universal movie since E.T. to go up from its first weekend to its second and from its second to its third. Not in universal, not since E.T. Overall, there's been no holiday weekend where it's happened, but no one has found - Didn't Project Hail Mary go up also recently?

21:19Anne Thompson:One weekend to another? If it did, it only went up one weekend, not two. But I don't even think it did that. But if it did, it only went up one weekend, not two. So you could check it. But I have yet to hear of a horror comp that went up two weekends in a row. No one said it yet. So that may be the first of all time. But I got to be very careful. I think. I don't know for sure.

21:44James Wan:You're going to be very careful there, Jason. Very careful, James. Statistics, please. You could be offending me here.

21:52Ryan Lattanzio:I need to check my stats. Yes, I could. yes i was gonna say james you might you might want to interject there james has more horror

22:00James Wan:records than anybody else so i don't know i you know what this is a very special one i mean the the way obsession caught on with the public and it just kept growing so it kind of started small first right initially um you know mainly with um kari's fan base uh um you know through all the little shorts that he had created but then it basically crossed over into the mainstream and the only way these movies could have the kind of success that they have successes that they have is they need to cross over into the mainstream right and and that's exactly what um obsession and back rooms did uh um back rooms basically uh got everyone super excited right so firstly with kane's fan base through his viral shorts and then and then other people started hearing about it And now the mainstream are like, you know what, what is this little like indie movie that that's kind of breaking that everyone's talking about?

22:55James Wan:And everyone's just so super excited to want to go and see it. And that to me, I think is the biggest irony that not enough people are talking about, which is these YouTube creators that are making stuff generally for the smallest screen, all actually wants to make movies for the big screen theater experiences. I think we need to be talking about this more about why, what it is that ultimately makes them want to do something for the big screen that everyone can get in a room together and share this communal experience.

23:27Anne Thompson:So I want to know more about how these two films were developed, you know, where they came from. So James, for example, on Backrooms, where did you find this guy? I mean, how did it come to you?

23:38James Wan:We at Atomic Monster, my company that I started a while ago, we, you know, we came across the viral short just like a lot of people did, right? We saw it online, we saw it on social media. And, you know, and so we reached out to Kane, you know. We didn't, at the time, we didn't know that he was a 16-year-old kid. We just, you know, like, you know, you see any short, you talk to anyone, to the filmmakers. and when we first set up the Zoom, I didn't realize that Kane's father was on the call as well and rightfully so, right? Because like he was underage and so we were talking to Kane and you know, Michael Clear at my company, you know, he's my partner at Atomic Launcher, he set everything up and we got on and we just chatted to him like he was any other filmmaker But always in the back of our minds, we, you know, we wanted to be very careful.

24:32James Wan:We wanted to be very sensitive to the fact that the kid is still in high school as a teenager. And and so we started developing this with him five years ago, I think now. And so Cain tell the story from his perspective that that, you know, that we were approaching him and a lot of other people in Hollywood were also approaching him as well. and he liked us and 21 Labs Entertainment and he wasn't quite sure which one to go with and ultimately, you know, we're friends with the guys at 21 Labs and we just decided, you know what? Why don't we just collaborate together and we help Kane bring his little shorts into the future world and that's what we did.

25:15James Wan:We developed the script with him and we brought it to A24.

25:18Ryan Lattanzio:I love those shorts. They're very, how can I say this? I find them to be very soothing. I used to fall asleep to them. I heard something. I heard something funny. I haven't heard. I don't remember who, but there's some rumor going on. I think maybe Matt said it or something that there was an assistant. The source was an assistant at 21 laps. Now, according to 21 laps, there was an assistant who they let go, who's running around town saying, I found this movie, which is totally not true, which is hilarious to your point of victory laps. I thought that was very funny. That's important. Well, Peter Churn is taking one too, by the way.

26:01He should. Well, he should. He should. He is entitled.

26:08James Wan:He did provide a very important aspect to the feature film. Yes. Yeah, for sure. For sure. For sure.

26:15Anne Thompson:It's called Filthy Luker, right? I mean, he backed it with A24. They split. They were partners. He co-financed the movie. That's a big deal. That's a big deal.

26:27Ryan Lattanzio:Jason, so, I mean, there's a degree of risk with both of these movies. And obviously, like you were saying, it's very heartening that a movie as weird as Backrooms and Obsession are doing so well. Focus Features bought the movie at Toronto for$15 million. uh were you confident about what you had when you brought the movie to toronto did it ignite some kind of bidding war i mean i have to feel that this maybe signals some kind of shift in focus features purview i feel like their horror movies up to this point have been maybe more like quote unquote sophisticated adult auteur horror like the robert eggers movies and obsession skews to a wider swath of the audience and younger 15 um 15 million dollars seemed like seemed like it was a lot of money.

27:15Now it seems like a great deal. So the person who took a bet, the first bet on this movie was Christian Mercury at Capstone. And he is the one who financed the 750 grand. And he really deserves the credit for taking a risk on Curry and on this movie and on the idea before anybody else. He and his company put up all the money for the movie. The physical producer was James Harris, and both of these folks were there long before Blumhouse and Atomic had anything to do with the movie. I saw the movie a couple of weeks before Toronto, and I loved it. and I got on the, got on a zoom with the director and, um, I said, your movie's amazing.

28:17Uh, what do you want to do next? And he sent me a script called anything but ghosts. And we, again, this is all before Toronto agreed to fully finance the movie. So we financed that movie. We closed the deal. And I went with Curry to the screening of obsession in Toronto, knowing that we were financing his next movie. And I was thrilled that Focus bought the movie and then Focus approached us and said, we want to do anything but goes too. And they said, would you consider helping us market and push out Obsession as much as possible? And then we'll partner together on the next movie. And that's how we got involved in Obsession.

29:01That's great.

29:02Anne Thompson:So do you have a theory about why this movie has connected? I mean, it's so unusual, as we've said, but obviously word of mouth. Obviously, it's hitting people. Are people identifying with this guy? Is there some kind of weird gender dynamic going on? Ryan has a whole theory about it. I have multiple theories.

29:24Ryan Lattanzio:Well, I mean, I think people do relate to an obsessive stalker character. I think absolutely. And especially in this moment of social media and relationships that are fractured because of them. But I also think there have to be men in the audience that identify with this kind of there. I don't want to employ the word incel necessarily, but there is an identity subjugation fantasy that this movie perhaps plays into.

29:49James Wan:Well, the wish for human aspect, right? The wish to film an aspect that goes awry. Yeah, my theory is closer to James, quite different than your theory. My theory is when a movie does this, and Anne, we were talking about before the interview, you were a big supporter of paranormal activity early on. To me, paranormal activity is there's a couple and the woman sees a ghost and the guy says, you're full of shit. And like the woman says, I'm not. I'm going to prove you wrong. And she turns out to be right and he turns out to be wrong. And I think fundamentally that's so powerful. I think obsession.

30:30I don't think it's – I don't think people are relating – this is my theory to the stalker. I think people are relating to being obsessed with someone. And when you're, when you have like an infatuation with someone, you get to watch a movie where all the things that you want to do, but don't do, someone else is doing. And I think that is so, to James's point, wish fulfilled. I think it's so satisfying to see what you want to do when you're really obsessed with someone, to see someone actually do it. That I think that there's a lot of incredible things. We had both actors here today talking at a town hall and their performances is so spectacular and the directing is so spectacular.

31:12And there's so many great things about the movie. But fundamentally, my opinion is young people love to see what it's like to actually act how you feel inside.

31:21Ryan Lattanzio:Yeah, I mean, that's definitely true. I'm coming at it from a dark, twisted, underside angle.

31:27Anne Thompson:Brian Latanzia, right there. I also think that, you know, part of the success is because Kari Barker has built up quite a personality for himself online as well.

31:38James Wan:And I think, you know, the internet world, the YouTube or the social media world loves seeing these people go on to have the successes that they have. Right. And I do think they want to be because these guys make these movies and shorts or whatever, whatever they do, the content wise that they produce with so much, you know, earnest authenticity and so much truth that that their supporters want to support them and want to see them success, succeed. And so I think a lot of the fandom, the fan base of theirs come out and drove to really support them in a big, big way. And that's essentially what we saw with Back Rooms, with Focaine, I think, the initial wave, at least.

32:24Anne Thompson:It's pretty unusual to go to an opening weekend screen. Well, I went to see it opening weekend at a Cinemark Theater, packed, packed, sold out. It was great.

32:33Ryan Lattanzio:Both movies are constantly sold out in New York.

32:36Anne Thompson:I was the oldest one there. We had to go to the eight o 'clock show, my daughter and I. It's great. It's great. I think people, you know, a lot of, I think especially young people that they've spent 30 % of the, if you're 12 years old, you spent 30 % of your life, four years, not being able to go to the movie theater. So I think it takes a, it's taken a long time for, for especially young people who've spent a big percentage of their life, not being able to go to the theater to remember how fun it is and how cool it is to like experience a movie, not on your phone together with other people. And I really, I really credit the, the, the filmmakers, the actors, the producing teams, the financiers, the distributors of these two movies with, with, with reminding young people how fun the movies are.

33:24I like that. It takes R-rated films to bring the young people out.

33:29Anne Thompson:All right. So so this is is this going to be, you know, the old saw in Hollywood is that hits beget hits and going to the box office means going back to the box office. It's a repeatable thing. Is this going to is this going to last? Are we going to hang on to them? They checked out for a long time.

33:50James Wan:I just think, you know, honestly, what we're seeing is, you know, you make the right movies. people want to come out to see them. That's the bottom line, right? And it's, I know it's easier said than done. It's not always an easy thing to do. Like, I mean, you can never predict what people want, but, uh, you know, I guess you can at least try, right. You can at least try and listen to what they want to see. Go ahead, Jason. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, look, maybe it's partially, you know, I, I don't know the difference between hope and think. I certainly hope so. But I also think that that this will remind people how fun the movies are.

34:27And I think we'll see an uptick in box office for the rest of the year.

34:31Anne Thompson:And are the studios going to change their ways? Are they going to try to imitate this and catch it? Are they going to be able to? They're used to marketing down. They're used to telling people where to go. They're not used to engaging with people.

34:44James Wan:the the uh the wrong lesson that will be learned from all this is everyone's going to be now pillaging youtube for ideas that's exactly what's going to happen pillaging social media and the creepy pasta now creepy yeah no i mean that that's a concern that i have is it's not that it's

35:02Ryan Lattanzio:backfiring but then we're in a situation where we're only then the studios are only green-laden talent that's already been incubated online and then there's less putting of risk or developing into new talent. Maybe you don't see that as an outcome of this. I'm not that cynical about it. The studios are still, their core business is still, I don't think this is affecting Chris Melodandre. That's their core, their big movies. I think Toy Story is going to do very well this summer. But I think that they'll, I think it's, I don't look at it nearly so cynically. I think it's opened up their eyes to a new generation of filmmakers, a new way to tell stories.

35:43I think the way Focus, which is obviously connected to universal marketed obsession, was not, you know, in your face. I think they handled it delicately and very, very well. And they're not a studio, but the same can be said for A24. They did a great job. But that's to your point, Anne. But I think it will open up. I, again, I go back to the fact that if you both movies are nutso, and I think there, it'll open the eyes of studios to, to taking more of a risk on out of the box ideas, which I think is good for everybody.

36:19Anne Thompson:Yeah. Do you think A24 is part of the marketing lore for backrooms as, as, as a brand? Do you think that makes a difference with audiences? Do they actually go because it's A24? I think people go because the movie is A24. I don't think that, obviously, the movie did three times their biggest opening ever. They've released many, many, many, many movies. I think when A24 is attached to a movie, younger people are that much more excited to go, 100%.

36:49James Wan:Yeah, that's just a certain level of trust that goes along with it.

36:54Ryan Lattanzio:you've kind of figured out what the allure psychologically for audiences of obsession is james what about for backrooms what what is it about i mean it's not you know it's from the youtube videos to this feature film what what are i don't know what are people identifying with well

37:11Anne Thompson:you also had to figure out how to make it into a coherent script well yeah exactly because the

37:16James Wan:original concept started on 4chan right and uh and it was sort of uh you know it's a literally the very essence of what a viral thing is it just sort of grew someone put this picture out there and then someone added a story to it and then someone else added to it and so there's a string of sort of legacy that came into the uh you know like the the thing before uh before we even got around to the feature before kane even got around to it and the special thing that what kane did was he took what was sort of like unique about it and he added his own voice to it and and i think there's just something about the added legacy that that just someone comes along and just add it more to it and i think there's a the entire internet baby maybe sees that they have some kind of ownership to uh to basically to back rooms in some ways and i think um i think in in a lot of ways that really helped um sort of shape how people see the thing and what brought people think because uh because like you said it's not the most easy or the most mainstream sort of like concept for people to wrap their heads around right i'm still trying to figure it out man but but to jason's point i think um i think the younger generation really like the the strange and and the weirder things.

38:35James Wan:And I've noticed, I don't know if you guys have seen this, but there is a love to the work of, of David Lynch that I've been seeing people gravitating towards. You guys have seen that. Right. And I find that very interesting. I find that my generation, you know, like I loved it because I went to film school and, you know, and we're taught to love, you know, people like the David Lynch's of the world, But it's very interesting to see because of sites like Letterboxd and places like that of how it has introduced the younger generation to filmmakers that you wouldn't usually think that they would be into.

39:17James Wan:And so I really love that. Yeah, I really like and love that, you know, the younger fandom are finding that the strange and peculiar really interesting for them. Yeah,

39:30Ryan Lattanzio:especially in the wake of his death. You know, I would argue that David Lynch is the most influential filmmaker for the young, the current generation of directors.

39:38James Wan:What do you think that is, Ryan? I'm trying to wrap my head around that. What it is it is about him that they're gravitating towards?

39:46Ryan Lattanzio:Part of it is those movies don't try to superimpose meaning on the images. And I think that younger audiences are resigned to the fact that a lot of what happens in life is without meaning. A lot of what we see doesn't have a meaning superimposed on it. And it's what you make of it and see of it. And, you know, those movies are more about sensibility and sensation than sense.

40:11James Wan:They're more about a vibe, right? Yeah, exactly. They're vibe movies, totally.

40:14Anne Thompson:And he doesn't explain everything, as Backrooms does not, to its credit.

40:21James Wan:Yeah, as he shouldn't, because the fan base brings their own idea and perception onto it.

40:29Anne Thompson:So they're all over it online, right? They're just all going wild with what the meanings are, right? Yeah, exactly.

40:36James Wan:And the great thing is, you know, they're debating amongst themselves, you know, like, no, it's about this. No, it's about that. And they get into it really emotionally. And so it's really cool. it's great to see how engaged they are. And, you know, and so, yeah, it's really interesting.

40:49Anne Thompson:So are directors going to be the new names that bring people in? I mean, is that where we're heading? Stars aren't doing it. Actors aren't doing it.

40:58James Wan:Well, I think Jason will tell you that at the very least in the horror genre, it has always been director driven. It's always been filmmaker driven.

41:07Anne Thompson:John Carpenter, George Romero.

41:08James Wan:Oh, my God. As far back, right, all the way back to Alfred Hitchcock, right? You know, like, you know, Hitchcock probably one of the very first original horror filmmaker. And so to Jason's earlier point, at least for me, from my perspective as a director myself, is, you know, when you're a content creator, right, on YouTube, on social media, you know, you're the person, you know, like you experiment with things. You experiment with editing, with photography, you know, putting your friends in there and you do crazy camera work. you use technology to develop a certain look that you're going after.

41:44James Wan:And you do all this using basically the internet as a platform to get instant feedback on what you do. And you can continue to hone your skills that way, right? And so these guys are perfectly set up to cross into the horror genre. The horror genre is the one genre where the aesthetic of filmmaking really has a big hand in the success of the actual product that you put out at the end. Right, Jason? Would you agree? Totally. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I do also think that their horror has been director driven for a long time. And, you know, Jordan Peele is a brand. Their brands in horror.

42:33James Wan is a brand.

42:35Anne Thompson:James Wan is a brand. Well, exactly. Jason Blum is a brand.

42:38Ryan Lattanzio:It's often how younger directors cut their teeth and then they sometimes move on to other things and then circle back to it. But maybe they don't. Yeah.

42:45Anne Thompson:Talk a little about your collaboration, how you two are working together now. Well, we met many years ago. We met many years ago at Insidious. Insidious, yeah. Exactly. And we've been, we've been, we've produced movies together. You know, we produced Megan together. We know each other for a long time and very well. And we did something very unusual. And I think both of us didn't quite realize how unusual it is and haven't maybe explained it well enough for people to understand. But we didn't just like one day decide like, hey, we're going to come together. Like over the course of 18 months, we spent an enormous amount of time and energy making it so that there is one company with two labels.

43:41So there is one P &L. So for every dollar I make on Five Nights at Freddy's affects James exactly the same way that every dollar he makes on Conjuring affects me. that there is one company with one physical production, one business affairs, one marketing, one post-production, one communication department that James and I together oversee. And there are two and the one thing that we wanted to maintain because we wanted to continue the output that the companies were doing on their own. I made three or four movies a year. James made three or four movies a year. We wanted to continue that output. So the creative groups, the creative group, movie and television group of Blumhouse and the creative movie and television group of Atomic remain separate.

44:28But everything else is together. And it's really one company, you know, Blumhouse Atomic. And that company is responsible for The Exorcist and Black Phone and Back Rooms and The Conjuring and everything that we do, we do together, which is hard to get your mind around. mostly, I think, because it's sort of unprecedented. They're the two biggest comedy companies. It's very rare. I can't think of a time. Maybe you guys can think of a time. Financiers combine each other. Studios combine. Fox and Disney combines. And even networks, ABC and Disney, NBC and Universal. But very, very rarely have producers merged in the way that we have.

45:14So it takes some explaining and some getting used to for everyone.

45:18Anne Thompson:You were able to increase the volume. That was the goal, right? So that you were in charge of the quality control, both of you, and you could get more movies out. Yeah. And what we feel really particularly proud about, especially this weekend, is this weekend is like, this weekend never would have happened if we hadn't merged. And this weekend was like the fruits of strategic thinking on both of our parts for a long, long, long, long time. It didn't happen by accident. And I think and I and we're both really proud of that and and and happy to explain it to you. James, did I leave anything out?

45:53James Wan:Well, I mean, the only thing I want to add to that is, you know, we we cross pollinate each other's projects. Right. So we help each other out. That's the bottom line. You know, they're really great things that Blumhouse does really well that we don't quite do as well at Atomic Monster. And so we kind of like siphon what they have, right, in their world and vice versa. You know, we'll help them out with their projects. And we just basically function as just, yeah, like one big family, essentially. And in terms of the output, for me, it's always been about quality. It's not about numbers. You know, we want to put out more, but we want to continue to put out just, you know, stuff that we think, you know, our fans wants to see, you know, that bottom line.

46:37James Wan:And I really want it to be a whole spectrum of things, you know, like from finding, you know, young upcoming YouTube filmmakers to to like legacy projects that we have that we're super proud of, you know, like with the soul films and Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity. And so I really think between those two worlds, you know, we want to find everything in between all that. And and, you know, at the end of the day, at least for me, I'm just a fan of the genre. I'm such a horror fan and I get super excited whenever there's something cool and different that comes along. And whether that is something brand new or seeing something new with a legacy project that I haven't seen been done before, that's what excites me.

47:21And that was why when Jason and I spoke about this idea about merging in the first place, I looked at it and I looked at all the positive things that I can potentially do from a fan perspective. And just to James's point, just to talk a few specifics, paranormal activity is clearly what started Blumhouse, essentially. And the new paranormal activity, James is the lead producer on it. We are not. So in terms of cross-pollination, it's a good example. Blair Witch is something that I think...

47:57Anne Thompson:When are these coming out? I don't even remember. They're both coming out next year.

48:02Ryan Lattanzio:Blair Witch is a YouTube discovery, right? And Dylan Clark, yeah, the Blair Witch.

48:10James Wan:Oh, yes, you mean the director? Yeah, the director. I was going to say, not the first Blair Witch. I was at Sundance on my first show. Me too. The first Blair Witch was a classic Sundance discovery.

48:25Ryan Lattanzio:I rented it as a 10-year-old and thought it was a real movie. So that's how embedded in my psyche that movie is.

48:33James Wan:Dylan Clark is a YouTube short filmmaker that we're very excited about that we've got on on this film. And he's got so much reverence for the original movie and just the found footage style of filmmaking in general. We're working with him developing this new movie right now that we're always super excited about. And one of the things we did early on, and we've been officially merged for over two years, but one of the things we did early on, which again was a 12-month extravaganza, was get the Saw rights back so that James now controls Saw again after he controlled it in the first movie. and then there were nine other movies and now we have Saw back and they're the lead producers on the new Saw movie, which will be the first time, you know, James will be actively involved.

49:26James Wan:It's very scary for me to be back on another Saw movie. I haven't been back on Saw.

49:32Anne Thompson:Scary for you.

49:34James Wan:No, just from a production standpoint, I haven't been back on Saw in a very long time. But having said that, it's also why I'm very excited about it because I do think that I have a very fresh perspective into this world. You know, like, you know, I helped create it with Lee Whannell. And so to come back and kind of shepherd this world into the next chapter that it could be is very exciting for me. Just one more little nugget I want to add with Blair Witches.

50:02Anne Thompson:Can you hear that noise on my end? No.

50:06James Wan:I can. Just a little bit. It's fine. I'm going to close the window.

50:08Anne Thompson:Hang on.

50:09James Wan:Sorry. Just a little nugget that I want to add about Blair Witch that makes it very exciting for me is just getting all the original people that were involved in the original Blair Witch coming back, getting their blessing and getting them involved. That was very important for all of us at Atomic Monster and at Blumhouse about wanting to pay respect to the legacy of it all.

50:33Ryan Lattanzio:And they were campaigning for that in their way. Yeah, we reached out to them. I think James and I really believe franchises are... the original if the people involved in the original movie want to be involved it's better to

50:45Anne Thompson:open your arms and bring them in well on that note i'm going to thank you for coming and talking to us this was fun oh thank you guys well thank you we're we're happy and it was a pleasure to meet you james i get it likewise i got it nice to meet you both we we're going to do it again

51:02James Wan:thanks guys thanks everyone bye