JoBlo Visits Blumhouse Where Jason Blum Announces Anthology Book

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Halloween is finally here! Leave it to Blumhouse Productions to continue to make their presence known on this haunted holiday. Last night, with a gathering of a small group of on-line writers, Jason Blum and the fine people of Blumhouse invited us on a tour of their offices for an announcement to finish off the night. Collaborating with Doubleday and Vintage Books, the production company is launching Blumhouse Books with a planned horror anthology due out simultaneously on trade paperback, hardcover and ebook in July of 2015. The first book for the company to be presented is “The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares: The Haunted City.”

This creepy collaboration will feature a number of filmmakers from the Blumhouse family, including Ethan Hawke, Eli Roth, Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill, Christopher Denham and James DeMonaco. Each of these artist have written what the official press release calls “an unforgettable cityscape of horror that is every bit as devilish and demonic as Blumhouse’s films.” With more than twenty short stories, all revolving around “the city,” let’s hope there is some seriously scary keep you up late at night reading going on.

For all of you out there that would like to see your work featured along with some of the biggest names in horror, you may have that chance. Blumhouse will be taking submission from writers to submit their own spooky tales for possible inclusion in the collection. If you think your horror is up to snuff, you should check out the full contest details at www.blumhousebooks.com. The top submissions will be posted on the Blumhouse Books website and social media, so readers can judge who has the scariest story. Winners will be included in the ebook and possibly even the hardback edition.

After the announcement, Jason Blum plus special guests Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill gave us a live reading of a passage from the book… and yes, it was pretty damn good. Mr. Blum being the kind and gracious host he is, also answered a few questions in regards to what we can expect in the future from Blumhouse Books – as well as couple of tidbits from their most popular franchises.

When asked whether they would like to see the short stories make it to the big or small screen, he explained that Blumhouse Books did not want the rights for that.

All the writers control their own content and they have all the movie and television rights and all that stuff. We don’t have any of those rights we just have the rights to publish the stories. That is not why we are doing this, but it would certainly be a happy outcome. I didn’t do a horror anthology to find material to make into movies and TV, but if something happened like that that would be totally cool. When people had asked me about that, I just said don’t think about that and write a great short story, don’t think about anything beyond that.

In regards to looking for new talent for future anthologies…

Definitely, I want to do another one and get submissions from people I haven’t worked with. That’s the hope. And I like the idea of doing anthologies where the stories are new. I really am interested in that. Hopefully we will do another anthology and the only thing that I would say that it would be the same thing, original and new stories, not stories that have already been published.

When it came to promoting the book…

I love talking directly to the consumer, the people that go see the movies and the people that go to the haunted houses – the people who actually read the books. That is another reason why we wanted to make this announcement with you guys and not with traditional media, so it would be more for the fans as opposed to a business thing.

What about James Wan and Leigh Whannell writing a story for the book?

James Wan and Leigh Whannell did not do one. This is on the record. They are the only ones in the Blumhouse family that said no to us. I’m calling them out on that.

Will James DeMonaco write the next PURGE and will the approach be closer to the first or second film?

He is 99% going to write it and he hasn’t said if he is going to direct it or not. He wants to leave it open, which is fine with me. And I can’t give you much because there really isn’t much honestly, but if you are asking will it resemble the second movie or the first movie, I think it would resemble the second movie more. The scope of it would feel more like the second movie.

What is up with the next PARANORMAL ACTIVITY?

I can tell you one thing about it, which is that we felt through all the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies that we teased a lot. We really wanted to give a ton of answers in this next movie and this next movie specifically has more answers to the mythology than any of the ones preceding it. But that is ALL I can tell you.