Jason Blum can make a decent case for being singlehandedly responsible for our new golden age of horror. His studio, Blumhouse Productions, got its start with the enormously profitable and popular Paranormal Activity movies and has gone on to bring us smash hits like Get Out, Happy Death Day, Halloween (2018), Us and The Invisible Man. But now, the producer may be facing a real-life fright as he and his family are battling COVID-19.
Last week, Blum revealed that both of his children had tested positive for the virus and it seems he’s joined them. Via Twitter, he said:
Tested positive. It’s Coronamania at my house. Symptoms mild so far but will keep ya’ll posted.
— Jason Blum (@jason_blum) November 30, 2020
Blum’s situation will be familiar to many Americans at the moment, as the nation is currently experiencing a major COVID-19 spike. For example, on November 27th, there were 205,460 new cases in a single day in the US, which is more than Japan has had since the beginning of the pandemic in total.
Of course, many of those people will experience mild symptoms and make a full recovery, but a significant number of them aren’t going to survive. And sadly, right now, there’s no sign of this wave breaking, especially given the amount of travel and socializing that just took place over Thanksgiving.
Beyond the human toll of the virus, Blum has previously predicted that the entertainment world will be very different post-pandemic. In a September interview with Inverse, he discussed the various impacts it’s had so far, revealing that there’s been a 10-20% increase in production costs to cover PPE and sanitization and also touched on the future of film distribution, saying the following:
“I think the future of theatrically released movies is that they’ll play in theaters for a shorter time, they’ll be many more of them, and then they’ll be a two or three-month premium rental window where you’re paying $20 for the movie. Then it’ll movie to pay-TV and the traditional rental window, which is four or five bucks.”
Here’s hoping Jason Blum and his family recover soon and don’t have too miserable a time of it.
