James Wan Wants to Revitalize The Saw Franchise

It sure feels like a long time since we last “saw” old Jigsaw up to his old tricks. But creator and director James Wan has some words of encouragement for us as he contemplates the next steps for the franchise.

The filmmaker burst onto the scene with his feature debut, Saw (2004), co-written with Leigh Whannell, kick‑starting the full-blown franchise. He never returned to the director’s chair for later entries, but he stuck around as an executive producer and chipped in on story for several sequels. However, the horror director is about to return to the series, and he spoke candidly with ScreenRant recently about the difficulties of creating the next film. 

“Any update? It’s a bit early to talk about it, but needless to say, it’s one that I am very excited about. Just because I really haven’t had much to do with the franchise since the very early days.

I guess it’s challenging and exciting because I get to come back to the movie that started my career – the career for myself and Leigh Whannell. I’m not taking this very lightly at all, and I definitely want to find a way for the next movie to be respectful of what fans love about the franchise, whilst finding a new audience for it.

It’s a 20-year-old franchise, and I do think finding a fresh start to some degree is important, while still staying true to the world that we have created.“

The last film in the series was SAW X, a superb return to form that saw John Kramer hunting down con-artist who tricked himout of money in exchange for a “miracle cure” to his cancer. The prequel, set bewteen Saw and Saw II was a much needed injection of blood, but as a prequel, the franchise does need to branch out into new terrottory in order to move forward. 

Earlier in the year, the writing duo Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan revealed that they had a draft turned in, but it has been in limbo for more than a year.  The writting pair revealed that it followed similar themes seen in Saw VI, where Jigsaw targeted health insurance executives. This script clearly was another prequel, and that maybe where the issue lies. We can only speculate at this point. But, what is clear is that James Wan wants the series to move ahead, not just with another film, but with a setup that will keep the franchise running for another 20 years.

Jigsaw is not quite dead yet, and we’ll keep our blood-shot eyes peeled for more news on this story.

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