The Saw franchise is now in the hands of Blumhouse, bringing franchise creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell back for the eleventh installment.
The contemporary horror masters have recently gone on record with promises to steer this IP back to its roots, even prompting unconfirmed speculation that they may return to direct at the Q&A for the special legacy screening of their breakout 2004 hit at the Sundance Film Festival this week.
While at Park City for the film’s screening, Wan and Whannell spoke to Bloody Disgusting’s Matt Donato about their involvement in the upcoming eleventh installment.
The pair have previously said to expect something completely different with the new film, but what exactly does that mean? Those worried it’ll follow spinoff Spiral: From the Book of Saw and bypass any involvement with Jigsaw or his complicated legacy, fret not: Wan puts those concerns to bed straightaway.
“Well, I can tell you this,” Wan says. “It’s definitely not Spiral, it’s not Spiral. And I still blame Leigh for killing off Jigsaw, because it’s fucking hard to try and make any future Saw movies without Jigsaw.”
“He did have cancer, by the way,” Whannell interjects.
Wan concedes, “That is true. That is true. This is what I’ll say. Leigh and I, we’re not going to give too much away, but we don’t think you can make a Saw movie without Jigsaw. That’s the bottom line. And ultimately, we want to hark back to the spirit, what Leigh and I love about the original first movie. The original first movie, which is Jigsaw’s philosophy and what makes him tick.
“Ultimately, he’s a scary guy in the first one, and we want to go back to making a scary Saw movie again, with this omnipresent thing that Jigsaw had in the first film.
“But so it’s a really kind of like dig into that. And definitely we want to give the fans what they love about the whole franchise as well, whilst I think it’s very important we want to do something new and fresh that hasn’t been done before. That’s the sale. That’s my pitch.”
Stay tuned for more from our chat with Wan and Whannell.
