Remember two weeks ago when we brought you the news that director Jon M. Chu would be directing the live action adaptation of 80s cartoon JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS? Well, I guess the project was further along than we thought because they begin filming in three weeks. In an industry where studio films typically can take months if not years to get produced, and even then sometimes fall apart, this movie looks to be taking a different path.
Producer Jason Blum, best known for his horror fare like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and THE PURGE, shed some light on how JEM came together so quickly.
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.
Blum could easily be turning the entire Hollywood system upside down if JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS works as well as his low budget horror films have. Found footage and horror are typically easy to make because they cost so little and have a huge return on investment. Chu was able to do something similar with his STEP UP movies as they were basically all choreography and little else. But, what does this mean for JEM? Will the movie be a STEP UP style movie with a lot of dance and singing and a shitty script or could it actually be a well made movie done on the cheap and very quickly?
Chu and JEM producers shared the first update on the production of the film on YouTube including a look at some of the fan submissions for the movie. The fan results are varied in quality, but it does give a good look at what will definitely be a new trend in movie production.
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