It’s been a long and difficult road to production for Saw XI.
After an astonishing box-office return with 2023’s Saw X, a sequel was immediately greenlit by Lionsgate to follow one year later.
However, as we know, this never happened. After missing two release dates, fans were shocked when Twisted Pictures sold their share in the Saw franchise to Blumhouse Productions. Why did this happen? Well, Twisted Pictures executives were unable to decide on the direction of an eleventh film. The fallout was so vicious that it was decided a clean break was best.
So, with Blumhouse now a 50% owner of Saw, the franchise had essentially come home. As is well documented, Blumhouse has a lucrative merger deal with Atomic Monster, a company operated by Saw creator James Wan.
It later emerged that Blumhouse had purposely bid on Saw in order to bring it back to Wan, as the filmmaker longed to take the reins once again.
Although we know precious little about what Wan has in store for an eleventh Saw entry, it has been confirmed the project will act as a “reboot.”
Now, Wan has spoken at length about his intentions for Saw, confirming he wants to make the series “scary” again:
“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.”
Wan continued:
“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.”
Finally, Wan affirmed that the eleventh instalment will be “something different,” and bring new life to the series:
“This next movie would be the eleventh instalment, 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.”
So, although Saw XI is still in early development, the wheels are definitely moving.
Stay tuned for more Saw updates as we have them.
