‘I would have called my lawyer’: Jason Blum on Hollywood’s WarnerMedia upheaval

Hollywood is still feeling the aftershocks of WarnerMedia’s announcement that it would stream all its 2021 movies on HBO Max the same day they open in theaters.

Jason Blum has a lot of thoughts about how this all went down. Blum first broke through producing low-budget horror hits “Paranormal Activity” and “The Purge.” Through his company Blumhouse Productions, Blum went on to embrace other genres, picking up Oscar nominations for “Whiplash,” “Get Out” and “BlacKkKlansman.”

He’s one of the first Hollywood citizens to talk publicly about WarnerMedia’s controversial move. More people in the industry are following suit.

Blum has long thought theatrical windows should be shorter and that studios should have more flexibility to move a movie to streaming faster than the standard four-month window. But he understands why filmmakers with an upcoming Warner Bros.’ movie feel blindsided and upset when suddenly getting a call that their film would be on HBO Max.

Blum doesn’t have a film on the 2021 Warner Bros. slate, but what if he did? He says, “If I had gotten that call, I would have been deeply disappointed, and I would have called my lawyer and said, ‘Are they allowed to do this?”