James Wan Wants ‘Saw’ Return To “Recapture The Spirit Of That First Film”, But Knows He Needs “To Do Something Different In Order To Reach Out To A New Generation”
With Jigsaw’s future set to see co-creator James Wan taking a more hands-on role in its development for the first time since 2006, the Saw co-creator says his main objective with the next film is bring the franchise back to its genuinely “scary”, less gore-centric roots.
Making his last major ‘on the ground’ contribution to the series with his directing of the original 2004 Saw film (with some brief story assistance later offered to Saw III), Wan’s return to the franchise was confirmed by Blumhouse studio namesake and founder Jason Blum during an October 28th interview with Variety‘s Matt Donnelly.
At the time having just recently acquired the rights to Saw from Lionsgate, Blum was met by an inquiry into “What is the creative vision there?”, to which he revealed his plan was, essentially, to get it back in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing with it:
“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 will be hugely involved. That’s how we’re going to reinvent it.”
With his return confirmed, a recent interview given to Letterboxd’s Isaac Feldberg saw Wan pressed as to “what does it mean for you to still be thinking so intently about this franchise 22 years later?”
In turn, the Aquaman director began by explaining, “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.”
To this end, Wan then more specifically detailed, “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 [series co-creator and writer of its first four films] Leigh [Whannell] 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.
Closing out his time with Feldberg, the director ultimately affirmed, “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.”
At present, the next Saw entry – the first under Blumhouse’s stewardship – has yet to receive any official production announcements.
