Prolific horror producers Jason Blum and James Wan are in advanced talks to merge their respective production companies Blumhouse and Atomic Monster, Deadline can confirm.
If the merger goes through, Atomic Monster will benefit from the first-look deal with Universal Pictures that Blumhouse is currently under, having come to the conclusion of its own deal with Warner Bros. over the summer. It’s expected that the companies would continue to operate as separate labels, with each maintaining its own creative autonomy and brand identity.
The alliance is expected to increase the companies’ combined output, with Atomic Monster to utilize Blumhouse’s existing infrastructure to scale its activities across film, TV and new content areas including games, live experiences and audio.
Blumhouse is known on the film side for horror franchises including Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Halloween, Happy Death Day, Split, Ouija, Unfriended, The Exorcist and Sinister. Blumhouse has already had quite the year on the horror front already starting with The Black Phone starring Ethan Hawke, which has made $159 million worldwide on a $22 million budget. They also recently dropped Halloween Ends, the final chapter in their rebooted series on the classic horror franchise. The film set streaming records at Peacock and just crossed $100 million at the global box-office.
Atomic Monster, meanwhile, is famous for its work on film series like The Conjuring, Insidious and Saw. The companies have collectively grossed over $11.6B worldwide since 2004, with horror projects making up nearly $8.5B of that total. Wan, as a director, counts the highest grossing DC movie of all-time in his filmography, Aquaman, which made over $1.1 billion. He is helming the sequel, Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom, which is due at Christmas next year.
News of talks between Blum and Wan was first reported by The New York Times. It comes ahead of the January 6, 2023 release of the Universal horror-thriller M3gan, produced by both companies. Gerard Johnstone directed from a script by Akela Cooper, which was based on Cooper and Wan’s story.