'Jigsaw' Writers Working On Yet Another New 'Saw' Sequel
Do you want to play a game...again? Much like Jigsaw himself, the Saw franchise will apparently never really die. Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg, who wrote the most recent sequel Jigsaw, are apparently hard at work on yet another new Saw sequel. What elaborate, implausible traps await us this time?
Nothing can kill the Saw franchise. Bloody Disgusting reports that Jigsaw writers Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg are plugging away at yet another Saw sequel, which will yet again pit a group of hapless saps against a series of deadly traps. Michael and Peter Spierig, who directed Jigsaw, will not be returning, which means this latest Saw sequel will need someone new at the helm.
The Saw franchise primarily focuses on John Kramer (Tobin Bell), AKA Jigsaw – a civil engineer who has a lot of issues. Jigsaw was dying of cancer, and his brush with death inspired him to start punishing people who failed to appreciate their lives. This entailed kidnapping scores of people, locking them away in rusty, damp warehouses, and putting them through a serious of Rube Goldberg-like traps. Jigsaw's whole M.O. included the ludicrous claim that he himself never killed anyone – his victims inevitably killed themselves. That's technically true, but they only did so after being strapped into hazardous death traps created by Jigsaw himself. Jigsaw technically died at the end of Saw III, with Saw IV opening with his grisly autopsy. Yet even after his death, the series kept finding new ways to bring him back.
I know the Saw franchise has its fans, but I've always held the series at arm's-length. The first film, directed by James Wan, is a pretty good, low-key indie horror film with some clever moments. The numerous sequels, however, became increasingly bonkers and resorted to jumping through hoops and foregoing any sort of logic in order to maintain some sort of continuity.
The Saw series originally spanned seven films between 2005 and 2010. Every Halloween season, a new Saw film would come out, and despite each film dropping in quality, audiences still turned out. The Saw franchise went into hibernation after 2010's Saw 3D, AKA Saw: The Final Chapter. But in 2017, Lionsgate decided to revive the series with Jigsaw. Rather than a straight-up reboot, Jigsaw attempted to continue the ongoing Saw story for a whole new generation. The results were...mixed. Jigsaw is pretty stupid, but I have to admit, the film's big third act twist is so ridiculous, and so implausible, that I sort of appreciated it.
There's absolutely nowhere for the Saw story to go after Jigsaw, but I'm sure Goldfinger and Stolberg will figure something out. Perhaps they'll reboot the franchise entirely. Perhaps they'll go back in time. Perhaps they'll send Jigsaw to space. Anything goes with Saw!