Jason Blum took the opportunity at Wednesday’s L.A. premiere of “Halloween” to clarify his comments about the availability of female directors that made headlines earlier in the day.
“I totally misspoke,” Blum told Variety on the red carpet. “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.”
“Chelsea Stardust, who is my old assistant, I financed her first movie, but I would like to work with more,” Blum continued. “Today was a great day for me because I 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.”
Blum’s remarks from an interview with Polygon were the subject of criticism Wednesday when he said Blumhouse’s absence of female directors despite making films for 11 years was not due to lack of trying.
“We’re always trying to do that,” Blum said. “We’re not trying to do it because of recent events. We’ve always been trying. There are not a lot of female directors period, and even less who are inclined to do horror. I’m a massive admirer of [‘The Babadook’ director] Jennifer Kent. I’ve offered her every movie we’ve had available. She’s turned me down every time.”
The comments received significant blowback online.