Blumhouse has acquired the splatter-horror Saw franchise, with a soft reboot beginning pre-production with original creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell.
The creative duo have vowed to take Saw “back to its roots” in what will be the franchise’s 11th instalment.
Film News Blitz’s RC Stacey jigsaws the horror news together.
‘Saw’ reboot in the works
With Saw XI originally planned to release in September 2026, Twisted Pictures Oren Koules and partner Mark Burg hit a creative roadblock when they couldn’t agree on the direction of the film.
Speaking to Fangoria, Koules said that because of the creative impasses, “it was the right time [to sell]”.
This led to Blumhouse acquiring full franchise rights to the splatter series that began as a short film from creators Wan and Whannell.
This short film was the catalyst that led to a full feature, financed by Twisted Pictures and distributed by Lionsgate, with 2004’s Saw giving rise to the now-iconic Jigsaw killer, realised perfectly by Tobin Bell.
Saw grossed over $104 Million at the global box office against a reported $1.2 million production budget.
Typically featuring in horror top 10 lists and sitting at a respectable 3.7/5 on Letterboxd, this cult horror series has spawned over 10 films and 2 video games and has made over $1.1 billion worldwide.
James Wan provides key ‘Saw’ reboot update
As with the flurry of classic horror franchise reboots we’ve been hearing about in recent months, Blumhouse went back to the franchise’s creators, Wan and Whannell.
Wan has become an incredibly successful blockbuster filmmaker, with both the DCEU Aquaman films and the birth of another hugely successful horror franchise, The Conjuring series, to his name.
During a legacy screening of the original Saw film at 2026’s Sundance Film Festival, Wan and Whannell were quoted, speaking about the nature of their villainous creation “Ultimately, he’s a scary guy in the first one, and we want to go back to making a scary Saw movie again, with this omnipresent thing that Jigsaw had in the first film.”
Speaking on the Chris Rock-developed franchise offshoot Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021), the creative duo said that their new film would not be following in its footsteps.
“It’s definitely not Spiral, it’s not Spiral. And I still blame Leigh for killing off Jigsaw, because it’s fucking hard to try and make any future Saw movies without Jigsaw,” said Wan at the Q and A following the Sundance screening.
Last seen on our screens with 2023’s (surprisingly good) Saw X, the Jigsaw killer looks set for a soft reboot.
While details are well hidden for now, one thing we can be sure of is grisly traps, moral dilemmas, and lots and lots and lots of blood.
Looking forward to more traps from everyone’s favourite engineer-turned-serial killer? Or are you getting sick of all the rehashing?
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