Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t know she would star in three more Halloween movies when she starred in the 2018 film adaptation, a sequel to David Gordon Green’s 1978 film.
“If not now, then when? If not me, then who? Pivot and manifest,” Curtis spoke about filmmaking and her career as an actress and producer during a panel discussion at SXSW titled “Pivot and Manifesto.” She began by expressing her gratitude to Jason Blum.
“I’m sitting in this chair today because of Jason. Jason Blum, who runs Blumhouse, is the one who brought back the ‘Halloween’ movies,” she says. But when she got the call, she thought it was just one movie, only to find out much later that she was planning more.
“If they had come to me and said this was going to be a trilogy, I don’t think I would have said yes,” she said. “Jason Blum is famous for being cheap. How do you make a low-budget movie? You don’t pay people. That’s the model.”
So she used that to her advantage.
“As we were editing and mixing, David said, ‘You know this is a trilogy,’ and I was like, ‘Hmm, no.’ “I went to Jason Blum and said, ‘I’ve got some ideas, can you give me a first look deal and give me a little bit of money,'” she recalls. “I said to Jason, ‘How about a little development deal?’ Besides, I owe him two ‘Halloween’ movies, so what would he say?”
Curtis wanted extra money to pay filmmaker Russell Goldman, who was helping make “Mother Nature.” Goldman is currently in development at Curtis’ Comet Pictures, and made his feature directorial debut with Sender at SXSW. This premiere will be the first time Curtis will see the Comet Pictures logo on the big screen.
“Jason Blum gave me vanity,” she said, referring to a moment earlier in the conversation where they discussed how different actors receive producer credits differently. Blum added that she probably never expected that she would end up calling multiple projects after that. For example, Curtis heard the story of a school bus driver and teacher who saved 22 children on NPR and said she wanted to produce the show. This year, the Apple TV movie “The Lost Bus” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
Later in the conversation, the host brought up how the Academy finally seems to be respecting the horror genre with its tremendous love for “Sinners.” Curtis said that although she is a scream queen, she does not love the genre. But she can appreciate it a lot.
“I love the independent filmmaking aspect of this genre,” she says, adding that she’s excited to see how it’s becoming more diverse and showing different genders and sexualities, or, as she puts it, “words that Donald Trump is trying to erase from our language.”
Curtis added, “So, while I appreciate the genre aspect and I live my life because of the genre, I don’t have to pretend that I’m a genre girl and that I love the genre.”
She then opened up about “Scarpetta”, which she also called Blum, when she realized that Patricia Cornwell’s book had not yet appeared on screen and wanted one. However, she had no intention of appearing in it.
Curtis met Kidman at the Academy Awards many years ago. Kidman told her, “I see you. I see who you are. I see what you do. I see how you do it. And I really like it, and I want you to keep doing it.” So when they reunited years later, when Kidman asked, “So, you’re in it too?” Curtis couldn’t say no.
“I really didn’t want to be on an hour-long TV show because the hours were terrible,” Curtis added. “My only hope is to become a sitcom!”
