“I want to play a game.”
Those immortal words, spoken by Billy the Puppet, ushered in a franchise of torture porn that goes by the name of Saw. When the first film dropped in 2004, it was a commercial success to an insane degree; making $100 million on a budget that was less than $2 million. Naturally, sequels would follow leading up to 2023’s “Saw X.” Then, everything fell apart in a fairly dramatic way. Not like, Jigsaw torture device dramatic, but more creative disputes and intellectual property rights drama. Enter Blumhouse Productions to save the day.
The franchise was a joint production between Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures. “Saw X” was a strong performer at the box office, making $125 million off of a budget that was a tenth of that. A sequel was in the works, set to hit in 2025. Here we are halfway through the year and not only did it not happen, but it’s not going to. Some sort of disagreement happened between Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures, preventing another film from happening. So, what do you do when you want to make a movie but one of the owners won’t agree? You buy them out. That’s where Blumhouse enters into the equation.
Blumhouse is one of the biggest names in horror films right now, churning out projects like, “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “M3GAN,” and the remake of “Speak No Evil,” just to name a few. Given that Saw is one of the biggest franchises in the genre, it makes sense that they might want in on something like this. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the director of the original film, James Wan, is the founder of Blumhouse subsidiary, Atomic Monster. Blumhouse successfully purchased Twisted Pictures half of the franchise rights and not only are they proceeding to work with Lionsgate to make future films, but they’re putting Wan and co-creator, Leigh Whannell, in a place to “guide the future of the franchise.”
This is big news for Saw fans and a potentially huge get for Blumhouse. Franchise rights are a complicated mess, and this is not the first franchise to be caught up in them. Friday the 13th has had a tumultuous time moving forward because of ownership and creative disputes. It’s a large reason why the online multiplayer game was shut down at the end of 2024. We’re glad to see that Saw has a path moving forward and that the pieces have been put back together. Now we’ll just have to see what they manage to do to bring Jigsaw back yet again.
