Jason Blum apologizes for dumb comments about female directors, promises to actually meet some
Blumhouse Productions is a wildly successful studio that’s served to both revive mainstream culture’s interest in boundary-pushing genre and foster up-and-coming filmmakers like Jordan Peele and Damien Chazelle. It was a tad disconcerting, then, when head honcho Jason Blum responded to a question of why the studio has yet to release a horror film directed by a woman with the bizarre claim that “there are not a lot of female directors period, and even less who are inclined to do horror.” To prove he’s turned over every rock, Blum said he’s offered projects to The Babadook’s Jennifer Kent and Honeymoon’s Leigh Janiak, who are not only established filmmakers but also knee-deep in other projects.
It wasn’t long before horror fans and industry types began doing Blum’s work for him, assembling lists—like this one our own Katie Rife put together—positively brimming with talented, horror-inclined female filmmakers.
Blum responded to Variety on the red carpet at last night’s L.A. premiere of Halloween. “I totally misspoke,” he said. “I made a mistake about it. Our audience is 55% women, the executives at the company we have are 50% women. I am passionate about hiring women, and I totally made a mistake in the way I represented that. We already work with a lot of women.”
He added on the red carpet that he “learned a lot and because there are a lot of women out there that I’m going to meet as a result of today so I’m grateful for it.”
Later, he took to Twitter, where he formally apologize and acknowledged that “we have not done a good enough job working with female directors and it is not because they don’t exist.” He also called his comments “dumb” and “stupid” three different times, which is something guys should probably do more of when apologizing.
See his full statement below: