James Wan is truly one of our modern horror masters. From shepherding The Conjuring Universe to creating massive franchises like Insidious, not to mention crafting one-off gems like Malignant, the man rarely seems to miss. This is to say nothing of his work as a producer, putting his weight behind hits like M3GAN and Mortal Kombat, among many others. But his career all started with 2004’s Saw, which served as his feature directorial debut and the first franchise he got off the ground. So, what would it take to get Wan back behind the camera for a new entry in that franchise?
In a recent interview with People to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original Saw, Wan was asked whether or not he would consider directing another entry in the series. For what it’s worth, the man is very busy these days, with a remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon next up on his to-do list. Because he’s so busy, it would need to be an extra special opportunity to lure him back to the world of Jigsaw.
“I would never say never, but it would have to be something extremely special for me to want to step back in. And right now, I have so many other projects that I'm cooking in the pipeline that mean a lot to me. So I would rather work on those and see those get off the ground before something else that I've already done.”
Wan is truly a very busy man. He’s producing several projects such as M3GAN 2.0, Stephen King’s The Monkey, a live-action Gargoyles TV show and an Insidious spin-off, in addition to many other irons in the fire at various stages of development. Not to mention his work as a director. Beyond that, his experience making Saw was far from great, as he explained in the same interview.
“The making of Saw was literally me spending every day fighting for the things that I cannot get. So even though the movie and the franchise itself it's a comfort to others, as a filmmaker, as a director, you cannot help but see all the things that you did not get. And I guess that's how we are as artists, is we don't really see the cup is half full — we see the cup is half empty.”
Despite the bad experience, the film turned out to be a huge hit, kicking off what is currently a ten-movie franchise that has earned more than $1.1 billion at the box office to date. Saw XI is currently in the works, with Tobin Bell once again returning as John Kramer, aka Jigsaw. What happens after that? It’s hard to say. Maybe if Lionsgate wants to truly reboot the series, or take things in a wildly different direction, that would be enough to get Wan back. For now though, his focus is on other things.
“They've all done a great job shepherding this franchise and [continuing] to make as many as they have,” Wan said of the sequels, while also acknowledging that he would have taken things in a different direction. “So kudos to them for knowing what to do, and the direction of where they felt they needed to take it.”
Saw XI is currently set to hit theaters on September 26, 2025. For more, get the lowdown on The Munsters reboot that Wan is working on for Universal.
