I think the location is almost as important as casting the leads of the movie. The location on The Purge was crucial to that movie working.
Jason BlumI try to work with people who you're not used to seeing in scary movies. I think it makes for a more interesting mix, when you're watching the movie.
Jason BlumThe model we established was to give creative people complete creative freedom in exchange for betting on themselves, so they work for the minimums you're allowed to work for, and if the movies work in a big way, everyone does very well. If the movies don't, nobody loses too much money. The benefit to doing all the movies low budget is we can tell different types of stories and take creative risks. The Purge would have been irresponsible to do for $20M, but to do it for $3M makes sense.
Jason BlumOne thing I am very strict about is that I don't like spending a lot of money on movies because the more money you spend I think the worse that they get.
Jason BlumBut one of the rules I don't like to break is we still do - 95% of our movies are low budget. We're offered bigger, larger budget movies to produce a lot, and we don't do them. That's not to say there aren't exceptions, there are a few exceptions, but I try and stick by the rules that produce what I think is the highest quality, most innovative work and try and let the rules go that make us feel like we're retreading.
Jason Blum