More often than not, a young filmmaker who manages to reach superstardom got their start in small-budget horror. Before Peter Jackson made The Lord of the Rings, he made the sci-fi horror movie Bad Taste. Before his Spider-Man trilogy, Sam Raimi made Evil Dead. And before Aquaman, James Wan made Saw. And now that Wan has become a pillar of Hollywood horror, Saw is returning to his bloody bosom.
Ever since the first Saw movie was released back in 2004, the franchise has been produced by Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures. But Deadline reports that Blumhouse, which recently merged with James Wan’s company Atomic Monster, is acquiring Twisted Pictures’ half of the rights to the Saw franchise.
This should be a big win for franchise fans. Wan hasn’t been directly involved with a Saw movie since he co-wrote Saw 3, although he and Whannell were credited as executive producers on every movie. The franchise has been floundering since 2023’s Saw X, with Saw XI taken off the release schedule and Billy the Puppet forced to update his LinkedIn page.
The cancellation was reportedly at the “managerial level,” so now that the movies have (partially) new management, Saw may live yet again. Saw XI co-writer Patrick Melton recently told The Hollywood Reporter that the movie’s script has a “very timely” concept, so we may finally get to see the film. Now that Wan has creative control back, he might even take a crack at the script or step behind the camera. Saw is all about traps, and in Hollywood, there’s no greater trap than development hell. Unlike so many of its characters, however, it looks like Saw will escape mortal peril for now.
