The Saw franchise got a lot of mileage out of a simple concept, namely that a serial killer (and later the death cult he inspires) locks people into rooms with death traps that reflect their personal problems, and they’ve got to either escape or die nastily. It was so popular there were seven movies between 2004 and 2010, and it was a bit surprising Lionsgate didn’t keep it going.
But stop it did, until now. Lionsgate appears to be reviving the franchise, putting slasher writers Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger on a script being called Saw: Legacy. Considering an ongoing theme of the franchise is that the Jigsaw Killer is a quasi-religious figure, we’re assuming the title refers to that somehow.
It’s less than surprising Lionsgate is going back to the horror well. The studio recently blamed everything from terrorism to Star Wars for the relatively slight underperformance of the Hunger Games finale, so there’s a lot of appeal in a franchise that’s cheap and reliably makes money. Not that Lionsgate will stop making Hunger Games movies, of course, but they want to reinforce the bottom line.
That said, Lionsgate seems to be taking the opportunity to overhaul the franchise a bit. Stolberg and Goldfinger are notable for having a sense of humor, as they’re the guys behind Piranha 3D, which opened with Richard Dreyfuss parodying his role in Jaws. The Saw series has always been deadly serious, and a little dark humor would be a nice change of pace.
(Via Complex)
