{"id":506700,"date":"2026-03-06T06:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/506700\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T06:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:12:11","slug":"jason-blum-and-amy-pascal-represent-hollywoods-glory-days-and-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/506700\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Blum and Amy Pascal Represent Hollywood’s Glory Days and Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Producers Guild Awards<\/a> are always about the power players.<\/p>\n

Last weekend\u2019s show pulled in Oscar contenders trying to woo undecided voters: Paul Mescal and the next day\u2019s Actor Awards<\/a>-winner Jessie Buckley presented the \u201cHamnet\u201d clip, while others on hand included Kate Hudson, Amy Madigan, Elle Fanning, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo, Jacob Elordi, and Teyana Taylor.<\/p>\n

However, the CEO wattage was super-sized. Mingling at the front of the room were IAC chairman and author<\/a> Barry\u00a0Diller, Marvel CEO Kevin Feige, Sony Motion Picture Group chairman Tom Rothman, and CAA chief Bryan Lourd. They were on hand to recognize two wildly different mega-producers: Amy Pascal<\/a>, who received the David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures, and Jason Blum<\/a>, who received the Milestone Award.<\/p>\n

\"'Stray<\/a> \"Maddie's<\/a> <\/p>\n

Greta Gerwig, who has no horse in this year\u2019s Oscar race, presented to Pascal. Why would she abandon her New York post-production on \u201cNarnia: The Magician\u2019s Nephew\u201d and schlep to Los Angeles? Because Pascal produced it \u2014 and when she had Rothman\u2019s job, she took the meeting with Gerwig when she pitched \u201cLittle Women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I met Amy Pascal<\/a>, I had never directed a film<\/a>,\u201d said Gerwig. \u201cI sat in her office with her with nothing but a burning desire to make \u2018Little Women\u2019 and a very specific take on it. At first, I was pitching her just as a writer. And at some point, she said, \u2018Who do you think should direct it?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ll be directing it. I\u2019ve seen the future, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing.\u2019 She didn\u2019t laugh at me, and she didn\u2019t flinch. She liked the song. She simply believed in me. That\u2019s who she is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ExclusiveFlorence Pugh, Amy Pascal and Greta Gerwig \u2013 \u2018Little Women\u2019
\nMichael Buckner\/Deadline\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Pascal forges an ex-studio chief\u2019s knowledge, relationships, and favors into big-budget commercial pictures. She is the last of her kind. <\/p>\n

Her talent in pulling off a powerful post-studio career is rare. But beyond that, the future of Hollywood leaves little room even for the possibility. Legacy studios face extinction at worst or continued contraction at best (whatever debt-burdened Paramount chief David Ellison<\/a> may claim about maintaining two studios that churn out 30 films a year). Ask any successful producer about the difficulties in getting quality commercial movies made. It\u2019s IP or bust. <\/p>\n

\"PROJECT\u2018Project Hail Mary<\/a>\u2018 \u00a9MGM\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

Pascal knows how to play the game \u2014\u00a0and, notoriously, to overspend. She most recently produced Phil Lord and Christopher Miller\u2019s live-action outer space epic \u201cProject Hail Mary\u201d (Amazon\/MGM, March 20). Like \u201cThe Martian,\u201d it\u2019s based on an Andy Weir sci-fi novel, this time starring Ryan Gosling as a scientist in space who encounters an alien. Early reveiws suggest a crowd-pleasing spectacle and likely box-office juggernaut. It also cost $248 million to produce.<\/p>\n

When Amazon turned to Pascal (and fellow quality producer David Heyman, of \u201cHarry Potter\u201d fame), to produce the next James Bond, it inspired a Hollywood sigh of relief: Two producers who reliably make smart movies with commercial instincts.<\/p>\n

But what are the odds that a future Hollywood could accommodate a future Pascal? She began in development, worked through Twentieth Century Fox (gone), Turner Pictures (gone), and then Columbia Pictures, where she first joined in 1988 and became chairman in 2006.<\/p>\n

Her specialty is high-quality big-budget films that feed the studio beast. Sometimes that was \u201cThe Da Vinci Code,\u201d a \u201cA League of Their Own,\u201d or \u201cSleepless in Seattle.\u201d She also loves finding a broad canvas for more challenging material: \u201cZero Dark Thirty,\u201d \u201cThe Social Network,\u201d \u201cCaptain Phillips,\u201d Spike Jonze\u2019s \u201cAdaptation,\u201d and David O. Russell\u2019s \u201cAmerican Hustle.\u201d This is where her heart lies.<\/p>\n

But in the year 2026, how many of those films could be made today, and at those budgets? <\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cThe Social Network\u201d<\/p>\n

With Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg as the outliers (both at Universal), studios don\u2019t prioritize high-quality, big-budget filmmaking. Even when it comes to the popcorn movies provided by tentpole franchises, Hollywood wants to cut spending. Pascal is the best we have, but there are very few franchises like James Bond.<\/p>\n

The transitional figure for the future could be horror master Jason Blum and his Blumhouse (\u201cParanormal Activity,\u201d \u201cInsidious,\u201d and \u201cBlack Phone\u201d franchises among their best grossers). At the PGAs, Diller cited his claims to fame: \u201c300 films made on the lowest pay scales in film history,\u201d he said. \u201cBut he also did something quite extraordinary in itself, and that\u2019s helping artists tell stories and helping them make a lot of money along the way, and rarely did the two go hand in hand.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"LOSJason Blum at the Business of Fear panel discussion presented by Blumhouse in Los Angeles on June 03, 2025.Getty Images for Blumhouse<\/p>\n

Blum learned taste at his father Irving\u2019s Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles; he learned how to make movies at Miramax with Harvey Weinstein. At the PGAs, Blum said that his father taught him \u201ctaste doesn\u2019t come from consensus, that belief has to come before validation.\u201d <\/p>\n

Blum is the kind of heat-seeking producer who, as soon as he saw low-budget gay hockey romance \u201cHeated Rivalry,\u201d tracked down Canadian producers Jacob Tierney and Brandon Brady to find out how it got made. He fervently believes that hits like that one \u201ctell the next generation that producing matters, that passion matters, that belief matters, that sometimes, oftentimes, the market is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Blum represents is not only a belief in the continued appetite for the right horror movie, but also the bloodhound instinct to sniff out new talent. As the indie universe and all those film festival farm teams get smaller, that\u2019s what the future needs. <\/p>\n

Blum has proved that sharp genre scripts, an eye for talent, and a disciplined approach to the bottom line can yield strong results; by seeking greater volume through Blumhouse\u2019s merger with \u201cThe Conjuring\u201d director James Wan\u2019s Atomic Monster, he next wants to prove it can scale. If the answer is yes, expect much of Hollywood to follow suit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Producers Guild Awards are always about the power players. Last weekend\u2019s show pulled in Oscar contenders trying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[230397,10546,236,88,2695,82569,192308,155909],"class_list":{"0":"post-506700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-amy-pascal","9":"tag-awards","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-film","13":"tag-jason-blum","14":"tag-producers-guild-awards","15":"tag-project-hail-mary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}