Blumhouse Productions, the company behind a litany of horror movies including The Conjuring and Insidious franchises, and more recently, theFive Nights at Freddy’sadaptation, is taking a giant leap into videogames. Under Blumhouse Games, head Jason Blum and creative lead Louise Blain unveiled six games in the pipeline at this year’s Summer Game Fest.
One of those projects was confirmed to be the cosmic horrorSleep Awake, created under Nine Inch Nails guitarist andSpec Ops: The Linedirector Cory Davis’ studio Eyes Out and Blumhouse will also be responsible for bringing the anticipatedDead by Daylight movie adaptationto life despite horror fans receiving no recent updates. The chance for several of Blumhouse’s games to be brought into live-action is also alive and kicking since the company holds the adaptation rights to all of them.
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In an interview withGamesIndustry.biz, Blumhouse Games president Zach Wood, CFO Don Sechler, and Blain discussed the publisher’s roadmap, its relationship with the horror community, and the team involved in bringing these “low budget” games to life through extensive creative support, including director James Wan.
Blumhouse Games announced six titles, including Fear the Spotlight, Sleep Awake, Crisol: Theater of Idols, Grave Seasons, The Simulation, and Project C, and Wood stated “We’re kind of at capacity at the moment”. The president confirmed the publisher was “further than a year ahead of schedule” with plans to debut Fear the Spotlight in 2024, three games in 2025, three in 2026, and a few in 2027 with the end goal to “maintain that pace” in releasing a few games every year.
Since Blumhouse is a publisher, the developers creating these projects generally hold the rights to their games. However, Blumhouse currently holds the rights to potential movie and TV adaptations. “We don’t look at games through that lens, but certainly that is a bonus,” Wood said, highlighting the opportunity to continue a concept in live-action if the game “resonates with our audience”.
Wood stressed “We endeavor to have our partners own the IP” and made it clear Blumhouse is “not interested in taking ownership”. Continuing the chat on rights, Wood said “It is their baby. We hope to be a long-term partner for them and keep working with them. We want to build a relationship. But this is their story.” Sechler considers Blumhouse’s movie and TV rights of its published games to be “a feature and not a bug”, and some of the creative minds behind these titles already have both feet in the silver screen.
Sechler confirmed “There’s a lot of creative support. Whether it is filmmakers, directors, writers…we can provide narrative support”, and one of those professionals is horror director James Wan. Having helmed Insidious, Saw, and The Conjuring, Wan has been shown “everything we’re doing”, says Sechler, and being a gamer himself, the director “gives a lot of feedback on the key art” and is “very excited” by Blumhouse’s line-up so far.
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