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\n The production company is battling a box office cold streak, and its Hollywood competition is noticing.
\n Photo: Universal Pictures\n <\/p>\n
Over the past 15 years, Blumhouse<\/a> has hacked a gaping wound into filmgoing consciousness with a steady flow of low-budget, high-margin horror: the Paranormal Activity<\/a>, Insidious<\/a>, and Purge<\/a> franchises that have combined to gross more than $2 billion; the 2018 Halloween<\/a> reboot (worldwide gross $260 million on a $10 million production budget); and Jordan Peele\u2019s directorial debut, Get Out (which launched the comedian\u2019s second career as a final-cut filmmaker), to name but a few of the company\u2019s numerous hits. But more recently \u2014 around Hollywood if not across the broader culture \u2014 Blumhouse has become synonymous with a different kind of cinematic bloodletting.<\/p>\n Since the beginning of last year, Blumhouse has been on a cold streak, releasing an almost uninterrupted string of box-office disappointments. In January 2024, the poorly reviewed Night Swim<\/a> drowned theatrically, followed in failure by the murderous teddy bear-flick Imaginary<\/a> (which did not hemorrhage money due to its relatively microscopic budget but is regarded as a dud). That left the vacation-friends spatter-fest Speak No Evil<\/a> to provide Blumhouse\u2019s only positive cash flow for the year. Leading into this weekend, the Universal-partnered production company\u2019s entire 2025 slate had fizzled: the Julia Garner biomorph-scarer Wolf Man<\/a>, the supernatural \u201ctrow-ma\u201d Woman in the Yard<\/a>, and the SXSW-anointed digital-dependency potboiler Drop<\/a> all undershot financial expectations en route to M3gan 2.0<\/a>, Blumhouse\u2019s reigning \u201925 disaster.<\/p>\n At a time when horror competition from A24\u2019s Talk to Me<\/a>, Warner Bros.\u2019 Weapons<\/a>, and Neon\u2019s Longlegs<\/a> has been increasingly carving into the Blumhouse market share, the steady drumbeat of Ls has left some industry observers wondering: Is the company\u2019s eponymous head honcho, Jason Blum<\/a>, losing his ability to scare up audiences?<\/p>\n Over the weekend, Blumhouse responded to that second-guessing with a less-than-decisive \u201cmaybe not.\u201d In its first three days of wide release, the company\u2019s Ethan Hawke<\/a>\u2013led, serial-child-abductor creepfest Black Phone 2<\/a> took in $27.3 million to claim the top spot at the box office and become Blumhouse\u2019s biggest opening of the year. But in an era when the box office is down 11 percent from the same time last year (and 20 percent below what movies brought in prior to COVID-19), opening-weekend supremacy comes with asterisks.<\/p>\n While slightly outpacing the financial benchmark set by 2021\u2019s The Black Phone<\/a> \u2014 a pandemic-era hit that debuted to $23.6 million and eventually took in a robust $161.4 million \u2014 that kind of return sits about square with pre-release \u201ctracking\u201d estimates that predicted BP2 opening to between $25 million and $30 million. And although the movie earned a decent 74 percent \u201cfresh\u201d on the Tomatometer<\/a>, Black Phone 2 scored a lowly B from the audience exit poll Cinemascore \u2014 unwelcome news for Blumhouse, considering that the industry regards any Cinemascore below a B+ as a negative augury for long-term playability. Moreover, a $27.3 million opening for the return of Hawke\u2019s demonically masked Grabber character isn\u2019t so grabby in comparison with last month\u2019s rollout of The Conjuring: Last Rites<\/a>: another major-market horror sequel that raked in $84 million over its North American opening weekend (and an additional $175.4 million internationally).<\/p>\n As The Outside Scoop<\/a> analyst Scott Mendelson<\/a> puts it, Blumhouse simply \u201cisn\u2019t the brand name that they were in the mid- to late-2010s.\u201d What\u2019s the problem? In many ways, it\u2019s a franchise-management issue. Early on, Blumhouse prioritized original IP, giving unknown directors relatively free reign on shoestring budgets to generate sequel after sequel in-house. But in more recent years, the company has turned to rebooting classic yesteryear horror franchises. Among them: The Exorcist (in 2021, Universal paid an eye-watering $400 million for Blumhouse to take over the long-running, religious-horror series) and Halloween (between 2018 and 2022, the company put out a trilogy of rebooted movies directed by David Gordon Green<\/a> and co-starring original franchise damsel in distress Jamie Lee Curtis).<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s a case to be made that the first Halloween was so successful<\/a> Blumhouse as a company got bit by the IP bug,\u201d Mendelson says. \u201cThe Halloween trilogy kicked off a new era in which Blumhouse became just as likely to try to revitalize some other horror property that you\u2019ve heard of as develop their own thing.\u201d (Blumhouse lost auction rights<\/a> for a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to A24 last month.)<\/p>\n Unfortunately, those reboots can carry high overhead costs. In 2023, critics almost universally damned The Exorcist: Believer with horrible reviews; it took in $136.2 million against a $30 million budget to become a decent enough hit. But that\u2019s hardly the kind of runaway smash to justify Universal\u2019s nearly half-billion-dollar IP outlay. In June, a second Blumhouse Exorcist to be directed by Haunting of Hill House horror-teur Mike Flanagan<\/a> was removed<\/a> from Universal\u2019s 2026 schedule and indefinitely postponed.<\/p>\n Then there is the fiasco of June\u2019s M3gan 2.0. Where the first M3gan<\/a>\u2019s Olsen-faced murder machine surprised and delighted audiences \u2014 costing $12 million, grossing $180 million \u2014 the higher-concept, bigger-budget, Terminator 2\u2013esque part deux shocked Hollywood with its inability to scare butts into seats. 2.0\u2019s production budget was reportedly $25 million; its worldwide ticket sales, $39 million. A flop when you factor in prints and advertising costs. \u201cWe all thought M3gan was like Superman \u2014 we could do anything to her,\u201d Blum said on The Town podcast<\/a>. \u201cWe kind of classically overthought how powerful people\u2019s engagement was, really, with her.\u201d<\/p>\n I asked a rival producer with a long track record of horror blockbusters if he thinks Blum has lost his touch. \u201cEveryone goes through cold streaks,\u201d this producer says. \u201cThere\u2019s so much more competition. It\u2019s hard to maintain your position. And if you look back across Blumhouse\u2019s entire slate, they had tons of things that didn\u2019t work. The good ones made them look great while paying for the losses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow it\u2019s just tougher and tougher to get circuit placement for these movies. So the losses are more noticeable,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n Whether Black Phone 2 \u201clegs out\u201d (i.e., remains in theaters with minimal attendance drops week by week to become a hit) or slinks from the multiplex after breaking even, Blumhouse has a final 2025 title: Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s 2 hits wide release on December 5. It\u2019s another sequel, this time to the fake-Chuck-E-Cheese slash-\u2019em-up Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s<\/a> that earned a staggering $291.4 million against a $20 million production budget two years ago. According to Mendelson, its calculus of profitability will be simple: \u201cThe movies are so cheap, the first one was so successful, and the fan base barely cares whether it\u2019s a good movie or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, he laments that even a worldwide hit won\u2019t bring back the world-beating, take-no-prisoners Blumhouse of a seemingly bygone era. \u201cThey have felt safe compared to their competition,\u201d he concludes. \u201cBlumhouse used to be dangerous!\u201d<\/p>\n