The prolific producer Jason Blum has been reflecting on the headline-grabbing film The Hunt that was dropped amid much controversy.
Jason Blum has enjoyed more than his fair share of successes of late, and what’s more, his Blumhouse company seem to have its mitts on more projects than ever these days. Whether its entire Blumhouse anthologies launching on Prime, another entry of the successful Purge series incoming or the, count ’em, three Stephen King adaptations that the production company has on the way, Blum and Blumhouse are doing pretty well.
However, there’s still one film that was released by Blum that has left something of a bad taste in his mouth, and that’s 2019’s The Hunt. Ahead of the film’s release, when its storyline about ‘liberal elites hunting conservatives’ broke, those involved found themselves engulfed in a firestorm of political controversy, even to the point that the then-President of the USA had a few things to say about it.
Ultimately, The Hunt’s cinema release would be delayed, before it made the briefest of appearances in multiplexes in the US. Here, we had to settle for a PVoD release.
Blum, it seems, is still not happy about it now, stating “the pre-release controversy of The Hunt ruined the whole movie,” Blum told Comicbook. “I mean, it ruined the release of the movie. The Hunt was going to be a big hit movie, and the controversy before the movie destroyed the release of the movie. When I get asked what’s my biggest regret running the company, it’s that no one got to see The Hunt because of that controversy. That controversy is horrible. It was bad. It was controversy about a movie no one had seen. People were making up stuff about a movie they had not seen, and I really hope it never happens again”.
With the current political climate remaining somewhat febrile, Blum admits that he worries about other Blumhouse films which contain political themes, such as the upcoming The Forever Purge, also suffering the same fate as The Hunt.
Adds Blum “I’m worrying about it happening before every movie. If we have controversy before a movie, it can wreck the release…But what can you do? I don’t worry too much. I can’t control it.”
The Forever Purge is set to release on July 16th.
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