Tyler Perry Teams Up With Blumhouse for New Thriller Help

By Spencer Perry

A surprising movie production team-up was confirmed during the second annual Blumfest today when Blumhouse producer Jason Blum and filmmaker Tyler Perry confirmed they were collaborating on a new project. Titled Help, the new thriller will be produced by Perry and Blum alongside Tim Palen, Screenwriter Alan McElroy, fresh off of the well received Wrong Turn reboot and other horror titles including Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and The Night Shift, will write and direct the movie. Production is scheduled to begin next year at Tyler Perry studios in Atlanta, Georgia, with a 2022 release date also being targeted.

In a pre-recorded statement, Perry said: "Hi Blumhouse Fans, I'm Tyler Perry and I'm coming to you today to tell you that my friend Jason Blum and I are working together on a new thriller, it's called Help, from Alan McElroy. He wrote it and he will direct it. You will know Alan from his work on Star Trek Discovery to Vampire Diaries to Wrong Turn and a ton of other projects in-between. We're going to start casting soon and hope to start production early next year. I cannot wait for you all to see this movie next year."

Though many might think of Blumhouse Productions as an independent entity that makes their own movies, they do frequently collaborate with other production companies for many projects. M. Night Shyamalan's Split and Glass were co-productions between Blumhouse and Shyamalan's own production company, Blinding Edge Pictures; while Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions was also a co-producer of the Blumhouse-produced Get Out. The list goes on further too with David Gordon Green's Rough House Pictures on the Halloween films and Platinum Dunes for The Purge franchise.

Thrillers also may not be the bread and butter of Tyler Perry's creative output but he has previously dabbled in the genre including the 2018 film Acrimony starring Taraji P. Henson and 2020's A Fall from Grace. Perry has also dabbled in horror-comedy with his Madea for the 2016 film Boo! A Madea Halloween and its 2017 sequel, Boo! 2.

Plot details for Help have not been disclosed but it was just one of many announcements made at Blumfest including the cast of Mr. Harrigan's Phone, a new Stephen King adaptation for Netflix that Blumhouse is producing. Also confirmed was that John Logan's LGBTQIA+ movie about a gay conversion camp, and starring Kevin Bacon, would be released on Peacock.

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