Episode 650: The Business Genius Behind Get Out

Enlarge this image toggle caption Steve Henn / NPR Steve Henn / NPR

This episode first ran in 2015.

Get Out is a comic film. Get Out is a horror movie. Get Out is serious commentary. It's hard to say what exactly Get Out is, but it is definitely a blockbuster. Which is surprising, because it was made by a company which totally rejects the blockbuster model: Blumhouse Productions.

Blumhouse, run by Jason Blum, makes movies on tiny budgets. They make a lot of movies, and many of them sneak straight to video, if you know what we mean. But somehow, they keep making hits. And it's happening more often. Get Out, for example, cost about $4.5 million to make, which is extremely cheap for Hollywood. Since it opened in February, it has grossed nearly $150 million.

In this episode, Stacey Vanek Smith and Steve Henn go to Blumhouse and found out how they work, following the director of Fast and Furious as he learns to make big movies on small dollars.

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Note: We originally titled this re-run "The Genius Behind Get Out." We've changed it to "The Business Genius Behind Get Out." We didn't mean to take anything away from the director.