Director Jon M. Chu and producers Jason Blum and Scooter Braun recently announced they were making a Jem and the Holograms movie and even asked for fan submissions to help cast the picture. It turns out they were further along in the process than I ever would have guessed.

Earlier today we caught up with Blum to talk about the horror flick Oculus, and towards the end of the interview we asked about Jem. Blum says the movie will be PG and start shooting in just three weeks. The producer also explained why this cartoon adaptation fits his business model when he’s usually associated with horror fare. Check out everything Blum had to say about Jem and the Holograms after the jump.

Collider: How did you come to be doing a live-action, modern-day movie for Jem and the Holograms?

JASON BLUM: Directors typically have three choices – you do a studio movie and get a paycheck up front, you do an independent movie, which is for your heart and you don’t get paid up front and probably don’t make any money on it, but it hopefully goes to Sundance and is more of an art movie, and then you do TV. I feel like our company is a fourth bucket, which is to do an independent movie that a studio will release. 90% of the time, that’s a scary movie, and it’s going to continue that way. Even though I’m doing Jem, I’ve got a gazillion more scary movies that I’m doing. Most of the time, low-budget wide release is scary, but if you have a brand, I think you can do a low-budget wide release movie that isn’t necessarily scary. So, that’s why we’re doing Jem. It’s our model, it’s just a different genre. It’s Jon M. Chu directing, and he’s awesome.

When will you go in front of the camera with it?

BLUM: We start shooting right away. Very soon. In like three weeks.

Are you aiming for a PG or a PG-13 rating?

BLUM: It’s PG.

Did the video you posted get a lot of video audition submissions?

BLUM: We’re posting another video either tonight or tomorrow, and we’ll show a bunch of the submissions. It’s great.

Did you get the craziest submissions?

BLUM: We got the craziest stuff, yeah. It was great. It was really awesome, and really fun.

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Chu posted an update on fan submissions earlier today:

In case you missed it, here’s the announcement video. Look for more with Blum tomorrow.