Horror franchise master James Wan (Insidious, The Conjuring) is soon to make a grand return to the series that made him a horror household name, as Blumhouse's recent acquisition of Saw rights brings Wan's Atomic Monster back into the creative process, possibly more so than we had previously anticipated.
Last year, following the success of Saw X and subsequent collapse of a potential eleventh entry in the franchise, it looked like the games were over for the Saw series. That is, until Blumhouse came aboard, acquiring prospective rights from previous owners Twisted Pictures.
With new movies on the horizon, Saw is getting a retrospective at Sundance this week as part of the Park City Legacy program, with Letterboxd getting some juicy new details from Wan regarding how much he and Leigh Whannell will be involved with the future of the iconic gory horror series:
For me, 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.
Wan goes on to tease that he wants any new Saw movies to be just as horrifying as the movie that started it all back in 2004:
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. 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 Leigh and I did in the first movie.
The Dead Silence director also acknowledges that after ten movies, even the most hardcore of Saw fans will be looking for a fresh take in the new movie:
[…] 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.
Head over to Letterboxd's official interview to read the rest of the scoop from Wan, in which he also explains why Billy the Puppet no longer wears his snazzy little bowler hat, and for more, here's what we know about Wan's upcoming The Creature from the Black Lagoon remake.
