YouTube to Mainstream: How James Wan & Jason Blum Changed Independent Horror

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Superproducers Jason Blum (Obsession) from Blumhouse and James Wan (Backrooms) of Atomic Monster have pulled off a mammoth theatrical feat – two blockbuster horror movies which have audiences screaming… to the theatres.

Blumhouse and Atomic Monster has produced over 250 movies and television series. They’re the biggest indie studio with a recognizable brand. $10 billion in combined box office. In 2025 alone, they grossed over $1 billion in box office. They had several hits in a row before Obsession and Backrooms:

The Conjuring: Last Rites
Black Phone 2
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

Obsession was made with a slim $750,000 budget and is on track to break the $100 million making it Focus Features’ highest grossing domestic movie to date. Backrooms is looking at similar figures for A24 Films off a $10 million budget.

Blum and Wan offer their thoughts on content creators, their company merger, and why horror saves the box office.

What drew you into horror movies?

“I’ve been a horror fan since I was a kid,” James Wan says. He grew up on a steady diet of John Carpenter and Wes Craven movies through the 80s and 90s and wanted to mimic that model.

Despite the negative reputation horror films constantly face by the industry, especially during awards seasons, ironically horror keeps saving the industry. After the disruption to cinema going during the COVID years, audiences are excited to go to the movies once again in droves.

What makes Obsession and Backrooms special?

“What I think is so incredible about Obsession and Back Rooms is that they’re really a new kind of movie.” says Blum. “They’re made by non-traditional directors. They’re made by directors who really hone their skills with online, as as YouTube creators.”

James Wan has been sourcing directors from the new internet frontier in addition to looking for potential material to develop into movies.

“What’s so fascinating about these young people, these artists, coming from online creation, is that their hope, desire and dream is to make cool movies. Backrooms and Obsession are edgy, weird and nuts,” Blum iterates.

The resurgent theatrical experience is reminiscent of the 70s when a new generation of young filmmakers are making eddy movies that are connecting audiences to theaters. This is especially noteworthy for younger filmmakers who didn’t grow in a time when going to the movies is a regular thing. The industry either didn’t offer anything they were interested in, or they were too preoccupied with their electronic devices and a sturdy wi-fi connection viewing and making content.

Obsession’s box office haul increased by double digits in the weeks immediately following release – 20% and 30% respectively. This defies the more common occurrence of box office dropping by that amount during the second week of release. Only E.T. has shown such stark box office increases.

Related: Lee Cronin’s the Mummy

Online content creators want to make big screen movies

Everyone’s on social media now. Everyone has a channel and a platform of choice whether it be Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.

“They train on the internet. At the end of the day, they’re storytellers, and they want to make things for the big screen. This young generation, Gen Zs, really does want to get back out into theaters,” Blum notes.

The internet is also the playground for cinematic experimentation. Despite the Backrooms movie ironically being criticized for forcing the YouTube videos into a more traditional Hollywood three-act story structure (seriously), it really is a strange movie in its own class.

Finding the new YouTube content creator sensations

Conventional marketing wisdom dictates that hard metrics should direct creative choices – the numbers never lie. Audiences are wary about going down online rabbit holes.

James Wan and Jason Blum understand that algorithms can be audiences manipulators – driving users to videos that others in their online communities have liked. But this is the World Wide Web. The Information Superhighway. And it doesn’t stop at YouTube.

“I go to Backrooms, and I start with the trailers. I go deeper and deeper. And then I go to the people who are talking about Backrooms, the people who are talking about the monsters in the Backrooms, the food in the Backrooms,” Wan explains.

Virality means that producers are contantly sent clips with “YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS” in the subject line in ALL CAPS.

Wan understands that virality is a sugar rush – a wave that comes and goes. Sometimes it leads to something. Sometimes it doesn’t. James has a more intuitive approach to online content. There may be a seed of something really special in a clip. The creator has something to say and has what it takes to adapt it into a movie.

Discovering The Backrooms viral videos

About five years ago, Atomic Monster came across the Backrooms viral shorts and James Wan made contact with Kane Parsons (aka Pixels).

They worked with him and supported Kane with the right infrastructure. In this case it was producing a series of shorts. “They don’t really have any stories. It’s just a vibe,” Wan adds.

Both Atomic Monster and Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps were interested in Backrooms. Kane Parsons was torn because he liked them both. So. the two companies collaborated to make it happen.

“We put the project together. We found a writer Will Soodik (Westworld, Homeland) to write the script with Kane. Then we took it out to the studios.”

Why do some creator-led movies work so well?

“One reason that is fascinating is YouTube creators are so obsessed and so connected to their audience. They put up a 15-minute clip and they can watch exactly how many people are seeing that clip at every minute,” Blum says. Creators can monitor what their audiences like.

Creators are so honed in and focused on making content for their audience. When you show a movie, you don’t have that direct relationship with the audience. The closest filmmakers have to that is test screenings.

James Wan describes them as “painful exercises where directors watch and the audience talk about the movie. At the end of the movie, there’s a little group, the focus group. And it’s like swallowing glass for the directors.”

In contrast, YouTube creators are sitting in the front row obsessed about how the audience is reacting to their movies.

These movies are connecting with younger people because they’re created by people who are thinking about directing in a very different way,” Blum notes.

The Jason Blum/ James Wan Bromance

James Wan first worked with Jason Blum for the Saw and Insidious films.

Jason was always filmmaker-friendly. He’s like, “I want you to make the movies you want to make. This is the sandbox that we’re going to play in, and you guys can do whatever you want,” Wan mentions.

This dynamic is rare in the mainstream studio system. You need a producer that believes in your vision and doesn’t unnecessarily interfere.

How has Blumhouse changed recently?

“On the creative label of Blumhouse, we made a big pivot. About a year ago, we had a string of movies that didn’t perform as well as I wanted them to. And we made a bunch of internal changes in the company,” Jason recalls.

“We hired Sam Zimmerman to really go back to our roots, to start looking at low-budget movies again through a different lens. Our older low-budget movies were almost never directed by first-time directors. So we were looking at low-budget movies by a younger generation of experienced filmmakers. We made a big commitment to a company called Divide/Conquer headed by Adam Hendricks, Greg Gilreath and John H. Lang,” Blum adds.

“A week and a half before Toronto, Adam Hendricks called me up and said, ‘You have to see this movie, and you have to read the script for Obsession. It’s going to be the most important movie in Toronto.”

Jason Blum confessed that he watched Obsessions and read the script, but “didn’t understand it the way Adam understood it. But I had made this commitment to Adam and Greg because I believed in their vision.”

How do the Merged Blumhouse and Atomic Monster Collaborate?

Blumhouse and Atomic Monster have merged. Two labels, one company

“We hope to harness the talent of these new generation of creators and turn it into theatrical movies, which is complicated. But that’s our new mission,” Jason says.

“There’s no secret sauce. But I do think we are fortunate enough to be able to pinpoint the filmmakers that we think have what it takes,” James mentions.

James Wan has his creative group with Atomic Monster in the company and Blumhouse theirs. They share other resources like business affairs and communications. James is the creative genius and Jason is more on the business side. That’s why they complement each other so well as partners.

It was a very conscious effort to keep two cultures with one company, but cross-pollinate between projects.

Final Thoughts

James Wan and Jason Blum attribute the secret of their success to never getting comfortable, even when things are going well. For Blum, ‘The Disney of horror is the aspiration.”