Genre regular James Wan is getting involved with a franchise he hasn’t had creative input in for a long time: the Saw franchise, which he started with writer Leigh Whannell back in 2004. Wan and Whannell moved on from that franchise after Saw III, but when creative disagreements between the producers at Twisted Pictures brought the development of Saw XI to a screeching halt, Blumhouse Productions swooped in and picked up the rights to the franchise. And since Blumhouse recently merged with Wan’s production company Atomic Monster, they’re bringing Wan and Whannell back into the picture. During an interview with Letterboxd, Wan said that his goal with the new Saw film is to make it scary like the first one (the only one he directed) was.
Statements
When Variety asked him what his creative vision for Saw was, Blum answered, “It’s really hard to make 10 movies in a franchise — I don’t take that away from the original series’ producers. And I’m grateful to them for allowing us to continue. My creative outlook is what I always preach: Get the people who made the magic in the first place more involved. James Wan [the original director] will be hugely involved. That’s how we’re going to reinvent it.“
When Blumhouse first secured the Saw deal, Wan provided the following statement: “Saw holds a special place in my heart. Coming back to this world with a fresh perspective is both thrilling and deeply personal. For me, this will mark a significant creative return to the Saw franchise for the first time since the early days, and I’m very much looking forward to embracing the original spirit whilst pushing the legacy forward in bold, unexpected ways.“
A Scary Saw
Wan told Isaac Feldberg of Letterboxd, “For me—James Wan—I have not been involved in this franchise to this degree, to this depth, basically since the first movie. On Saw III, I was kind of there, helping them shape the story, but I’m probably the one person in that world that has been the most removed from the franchise in that regard, other than giving my blessing throughout multiple films.
For me to finally come back to it, I feel I have probably the freshest outlook. I feel I can come back to it with a new perspective whilst knowing that with this next movie I want to hark back to the spirit of the first movie. One of the things I really want to do with this next Saw is make it scary again. I want to make a scary Saw—not just gory, but psychologically scarring, like what Leigh and I did in the first movie.
Leigh and I both want to recapture the spirit of that first film and revisit Jigsaw’s philosophy, which is that he goes after people who don’t appreciate their lives. If you’re a scumbag, but you appreciate your life, he doesn’t see you as someone who’s wasting your life, so I want to go back to what we touched on in the first movie with regard to that. At the same time, I want to honor what people have come to love about the franchise, whilst trying to do something fresh and new that we haven’t seen before. This next movie would be the eleventh installment, and there’ve been lots of films in this world. We need to do something different in order to reach out to a new generation that didn’t grow up with it.“
What do you think of James Wan’s approach to this new Saw movie? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
