Blumhouse swallows James Wan’s production company in monster merger
A merger sees two of horror’s biggest collaborators making their relationship a little more official
It’s a weird time for James Wan, the idiosyncratic and gonzo director of the already-forgotten Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom. Most probably don’t blame Wan for the bad timing and brutal production of that movie, which found itself paying for the sins of DC and Warner Bros. Discovery’s turbulent past three years. But as we bid a fond farewell to Aquaman and the Snyderverse, Wan’s already making moves. His production company, Atomic Monster, just finalized a merger with horror juggernaut Blumhouse.
Posting to Twitter, Jason Blum announced the deal is “done,” meaning we finally get a wink of sleep for the first time since the pair announced their intentions to merge in November 2022. “The preeminent homes for horror are now under one roof,” Blum wrote, evoking the titular house known for releasing low-budget horror movies and Oscar winners. In the immediate, this changes almost nothing from a viewer’s standpoint. Not a thing. Mainly because Wan has been working with Blumhouse since 2011 when the company produced Insidious in a bid to capitalize on their previous haunted house success, Paranormal Activity.
Some might already assume Blumhouse has been producing all those Conjuring movies, which are pretty easy to mistake for Insidious movies, considering they both star Patrick Wilson. They don’t, but Wan and Blumhouse continued working together throughout the Insidious series, even scaring up a tasty hit with the latest installment, Insidious: The Red Door. However, Atomic Monster didn’t make its way to Blum’s house until the generation-defining release of M3GAN last January. The latest Atomic Monster X Blumhouse collaboration, the haunted pool movie Night Swim, splashes into theaters this week. The new company has a first-look deal with Night Swim’s distributor, Universal Studios, per The Hollywood Reporter.
In Blum’s tweet, he included a video montage recapping the horror hits from Blumhouse and Atomic Monster’s past, including all those Conjuring movies. We assume this is supposed to excite people about the shared universe possibilities, so we’ll use this opportunity to stump for an M3GAN–Annabelle crossover called “M3GAN Loves Annabelle.” We don’t know what that movie will be like, but it had better be charming.