Horror production company Blumhouse has acquired a 50% stake in the long-running “Saw” franchise, buying the rights owned by producers Oren Koules and Mark Burg, the firm said Wednesday.

Santa Monica-based Lionsgate will continue to own 50% of the franchise, retain all domestic distribution rights for new feature films and still distribute worldwide for the library films. Los Angeles-based investment firm Content Partners has also acquired a stake in the library as part of the transaction, alongside Burg’s retained share, Blumhouse said.

Financial details were not disclosed.

Blumhouse will take the lead on international distribution for new feature films and will discuss global release strategies with Lionsgate on a film-by-film basis.

Blumhouse Chief Executive Jason Blum described the deal in a statement as “a strategic investment in one of the most recognizable and successful genre properties of the last two decades.” The 10-film franchise began in 2004 and has grossed more than a billion dollars in worldwide box office revenue.

“The Saw franchise has defined a generation of horror, and its cultural impact continues to grow,” he said.

With this deal, the franchise returns to filmmaker James Wan, who directed the first “Saw” film. Wan’s production company, Atomic Monster, merged with Blumhouse last year.

“Over the course of ten chilling and thrilling ‘Saw’ films, Oren and Mark have been outstanding partners, producers and stewards of this billion-dollar franchise,” Adam Fogelson, chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, said in a statement. “As they pass the baton to James — whose direction started it all — and to Jason and the team at Blumhouse, Billy couldn’t be in more gifted or twisted hands. Game on.”

The deal was the brainchild of Lionsgate Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer and Blum, according to a person familiar with the matter not authorized to comment.

The original “Saw” from 2004 was part of a wave of particularly gruesome horror movies that came to be derisively described as “torture porn.” Other examples included Eli Roth’s “Hostel.”

Horror franchise revivals have proved to be lucrative endeavors as of late, with hits including New Line’s “Final Destination Bloodlines.” The horror genre has been one of the most reliable at drawing fans to theaters in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most recent “Saw” film, 2023’s “Saw X,” grossed $53.6 million domestically and $58.6 million internationally for a global haul of $112.2 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

“With the success of the tenth film, this felt like the right time to pass the baton,” Koules said in a statement. “I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve built with Lionsgate over the past 20 years and deeply grateful to the fans who’ve been with us since the beginning.”

Burg cited the recent death of Lionsgate film executive and executive producer Jason Constantine as part of his decision to move on, saying in a statement that it was time to “tell new stories.”

Tired of navigating the online dating landscape alone? Now you can swipe right along with friends.

Tinder launched a double-dating feature Tuesday, allowing users to create joint profiles with friends to match with other pairs.

Double Date, as the feature is called, is the refined version of the failed 2016 product Tinder Social, which was discontinued in 2017 over privacy concerns and user confusion about its purpose.

To activate Double Date, users select up to three friends to create a pair with. Then they can browse and like other paired users. When both pairs like each other, a group chat opens between all four people to coordinate plans.

The feature also allows users to message individuals within a matched pair privately if they want to transition to a one-on-one conversation. Users can maintain multiple pairings with different friends while keeping their individual dating profile separate.

The feature was popular with young users when it was tested in Europe and Latin America. Cleo Long, Tinder’s head of product marketing, said the feature is meant to help relieve dating stress for younger users.

“This is a social-first experience that’s really meant to help relieve some of the pressure that we know a lot of Gen Z experiences with dating by making it more social, more fun, and bringing your friends in to help reinforce that comfort piece,” Long said.

West Hollywood-based Tinder said nearly 90% of people who tried Double Date were under 29, aligning with the company’s push to retain Gen Z.

The group dynamic appears to resonate with women, who were three times more likely to show interest in paired profiles compared to individual ones during testing. Users in group chats also sent significantly more messages — about 35% more than typical one-on-one conversations.

The company said the feature helped bring users to the platform. About 15% of people who accepted Double Date invitations were either completely new to Tinder or returning after a period of inactivity.

The positive testing results prompted Tinder to accelerate its U.S. launch ahead of schedule.

Tinder is owned by Match Group Inc., the company behind Hinge and OkCupid. It is facing mounting pressure on its business. In the first quarter of 2025, Match Group reported a 5% decline in paying subscribers across all its apps, while Tinder saw a 7% decrease in subscriptions. In response to these shifts, Match made the decision to lay off approximately 325 employees, or 13% of its workforce.

These recent losses are part of a broader pattern. Tinder’s paying user base has slipped from more than 11 million subscribers in late 2022 to roughly 9.1 million today. The consistent decline has caught the attention of activist investors, including Elliott Investment Management.

The mounting pressure led to significant leadership changes within the company. In May, Tinder Chief Executive Faye Iosotaluno announced she would step down in July after less than two years in the role. Spencer Rascoff, who was appointed Match chief executive in February to tackle the slowdown in user engagement, stepped in to lead Tinder directly.

Rascoff has outlined an ambitious technology-focused turnaround plan. In an internal memo viewed by the Wall Street Journal, he called on staff to speed up product changes and use artificial intelligence, emphasizing that employees should prioritize user experience over short-term revenue.

The company has rolled out AI features that help users create better profiles and prompt them to reconsider potentially inappropriate messages before sending them.

Tinder has also launched “The Game Game,” which uses OpenAI’s speech-to-speech technology to let users practice flirting with AI-generated personas in over-the-top scenarios designed to reduce dating anxiety through humor.

During the company’s first quarter earnings call, Rascoff noted that Match’s apps have fallen out of favor with younger daters because many saw using them as a “numbers game.” He believes Double Date can help shift perceptions, calling it less “hook-uppy” and more about having “a good time as friends.”

Tinder’s struggles reflect broader trends in the dating app industry. Dating apps have been losing their appeal amongst singles in recent years, especially Gen Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012. Only 26% of online dating services users in the U.S. are 18 to 29 years old, while 30 to 49-year-olds comprise 61% of that same user base.

Gen Z increasingly prefers meeting potential partners through mutual friends and real-world gatherings.

Los Angeles has become a testing ground for dating alternatives that skip swiping entirely. Start-ups like El Segundo-based First Round’s on Me encourage immediate in-person meetups, while Venice’s Lox Club hosts weekly community events for singles to mingle.

Whether Double Date can reverse Tinder’s fortunes remains to be seen, but Rascoff is betting that the future of dating lies not in perfecting the swipe, but in reimagining how people connect.

Gen Z is “not a hookup generation,” he said. “They don’t drink as much alcohol, they don’t have as much sex. We need to adapt our products to accept that reality.”

Six couples and one individual who lost their homes in the devastating Los Angeles County fires are suing State Farm, claiming that they were misled by the insurance company and that their homes were deliberately and “grossly underinsured.”

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Coutny Superior Court on Monday, alleges that State Farm General — the California home insurer that is part of Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm Group — took advantage of homeowners’ lack of knowledge about rebuilding costs and set projected replacement costs far lower than the actual costs, leaving fire victims without enough money to replace or rebuild their homes.

State Farm, California’s largest home insurer, has engaged in a “multi-faceted illegal scheme” that is designed to “reap enormous illicit profits by deceptively misleading over a million homeowners in California,” the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit alleges negligence, breach of contract and several other causes of action, and seeks compensatory and punitive damages and reform of State Farm’s policies.

Representatives for State Farm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This marks the second time L.A. County fire victims have sued insurers because they believe they were systematically underinsured. USAA and two insurers affiliated with AAA were sued in early June by policyholders with similar claims that they did not have enough money to rebuild.

Of the seven households that are a part of the lawsuit, four were from Altadena, two were from Pacific Palisades and one was from Sierra Madre. Each of the homeowners had policies with State Farm, and some were underinsured by more than $2 million when their homes were destroyed by the Palisades and Eaton fires.

In one instance outlined in the lawsuit, homeowners wrote to their State Farm agent before the January fires to confirm whether the dwelling limit of just over $1 million would sufficiently cover the cost of rebuilding their Altadena home. The agent confirmed the amount covered the total cost to rebuild. After their home burned down, the estimates the couple received to rebuild were in excess of $3 million, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit comes days after state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced his department is launching a formal inquiry into how State Farm General is handling thousands of claims filed by fire victims after receiving complaints.

As of June 12, State Farm said, it has received more than 12,800 claims related to the fires and has paid more than $4.03 billion to its California customers.

State Farm has also been named as a defendant in an April lawsuit filed by homeowners who accuse dozens of insurers of colluding over the last several years to force them into the California FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort that offers limited but typically expensive coverage. The homeowners claim the insurers refused to write new policies in fire-prone areas and then profited from the higher premiums while reducing their liabilities with the FAIR Plan in the event of a catastrophe like the January fires.

The latest lawsuit against State Farm claims that the insurer’s alleged collusion with other carriers to push homeowners onto the FAIR Plan meant the only policies left for the company were ones that “carried deliberately suppressed coverage limits of sufficiently low magnitude,” posing a lesser exposure risk for State Farm.

The average homeowner, the complaint states, would have little reason to question the replacement costs estimated by State Farm because it writes more than a million California homeowners insurance policies each year by generating reconstruction cost estimates.

The policyholders in the suit, as well as several other affected homeowners, the lawsuit said, are unable to rebuild their homes without “relief from the legal system.”

Times staff writer Laurence Darmiento contributed to this report.