James Wan On Returning To “Saw” Franchise

Confusion has bloomed following comments by acclaimed horror filmmaker James Wan at a special screening of 2004’s “Saw” at the Sundance Film Festival.

Wan and Leigh Whannell created the franchise with the original film, which Wan directed and Whannell wrote and co-starred in. Both have remained executive producers throughout, but have had no real involvement with the sequels beyond writing contributions on the second and third films.

Over six months ago, Blumhouse successfully acquired the rights to the franchise while Wan’s Atomic Monster label joined forces with Blumhouse recently – effectively bringing the “Saw” franchise back under Wan’s purview.

Wan confirmed at the screening that the next film will serve as his comeback after nearly two decades of not being involved with the franchise, saying he and Whannell are heavily involved in the creative development of “Saw 11”:

“All I can say at this point is… we’re gonna do one. We are going to make one. I don’t want to say too much. It’s very early still. Needless to say, the franchise has actually come back to Leigh and me. So we’re very excited… yeah, that means a lot.

We want to hark back to the spirit of the original film. We want to be mindful and be respectful of what fans have learned about the soapy nature of the entire franchise. We know there’s a lot of love for the world, but we definitely want to go back to the spirit of the first film. We want to make another scary Saw movie. That’s the goal.”

Some people ran with those comments, claiming that Wan would be returning to direct but Dread Central’s Brad Miska cleared that right up, saying “I made a few calls and can put that to rest – in the viral clip, he was talking about being more hands-on with the franchise now that it’s back with James and Leigh Whannell.”

Source: Let Me Explain Movies