Hello and welcome to my Saw Yapplace, where I will yap about Saw and there is nothing you can do about it. Also, keep in mind that this thing is a huge work in progress and I will probably be adding onto it a LOT.
Now here are the sections of the yap:
And now we will begin... (also, I'm not really sure about some of this. I'm pretty sure about most of it, from things I've read and interviews I've watched, but some stuff I'm not that sure about. This is a (hopefully very accurate) rendition of what I believed has happened throughout Saw history)
The story of Saw is really a story of 2 guys: Leigh Whannell and James Wan. Both of these 2 guys were in RMIT University when they met, both from Melbourne and both interested in the film industry, mostly interested in the genre of horror. They became friends and then both decided to work together to make a film, which they technically did during college. It was called Stygian, which I can't find but I'm pretty sure Leigh starred in it and James worked on it or something.
It was the mid-2000's when they both graduated, when Leigh went off and starred in the Matrix: Reloaded a couple of years later, and after that he auditioned for lots of movies which all bombed and he got fed up with it, so he went to James saying that if they wanted to make a film, they had to do it soon.
So then they started working on a script. Originally, they were planning on it being their little-tiny debut film without much of a budget, which it did become, but they were expecting it to become kind of a nothing-film, to make a name for themselves and to really get their careers going, instead of making a smash hit worldwide that blows up everywhere out of nowhere. Therefore, they planned a movie with a very small set and a smaller plot, and that's how they came up with the idea of 2 guys in a bathroom, or a single room. Then they worked on it a little more, and 9 months later, Leigh Whannell had written up the script for Saw.
Since the script was actually so well done, it got a lot of attention, and big-name actors wanted to get involved, like Cary Elwes and Danny Glover. However, they couldn't find where to film or where to get the people to film, so they left Australia to go to LA.But right before they went, they shot a little clip to advertise their movie, and it was also for the actors and such to understand what the vibe they were going for was. It was originally named Saw, but since that name has been taken by the actual movie, people started calling it Saw 0.5, where Leigh Whannell plays as a characters who went through one of Jigsaw's traps, the infamous Reverse Bear Trap. You can find it on YouTube.
This got things rolling, and that was when they got their instructions on how and when to film this movie. They were given 18 days with a $1 million budget. For reference, the average amount of time to film a movie is 30-120 days, and a movie is beginning to be considered low-budget if it has anything around a $50 million budget. So is shorter words, they were given practically nothing to work with.
Every single scene was shot in the same location, which was something resembling an abandoned warehouse, which fit into the vibe of the movie, and around 75-80% of the movie was shot handheld, according to James Wan, which is a huge percentage. They had lots and lots of ideas that had to simply get thrown away because they had no time and they had no money, and everything they came up with as a substitute was made impromptu and on the fly.
One example of this was the pig mask, where James Wan imagined it more like an actual pig head, but since they didn't have the money to get the prosthetics for it to look like a pig's head, they decided on making a mask that resembled a pig. They also planned on it to be a much more fantastical movie with more fictional aspects, instead of it being more down-to-earth like how it actually turned out, since they couldn't afford to do that. That's also why Jigsaw's outfit, the black and red cloak, was originally supposed to be completely red, to resemble Little Red Riding Hood a little bit, to cling onto that fictional aspect. But since the fantastical thing didn't work out, he just looked out of placed, so at the last minute they flipped the outfit inside out and now it is the black-and-red outfit that is in the movie now. You can actually find the original script online, which is pretty different from the movie it is now.
This also meant that the actors didn't have lots of time to rehearse, so it's surprising that the movie came out as well as it did. Wan says that he usually only got one take for the actors to get it right. On a good day he got 2, and on a SUPER good day he got 3. This also meant that the actors did not have muh time to actually act, either. Shawnee Smith, who plays as Amanda Young (the reverse bear trap girl) only got one day to film, and on that day she just so happened to get sick with the flu. Through that, however, she did film her parts in one full day, the bear trap before lunch and the police department stuff afterwards, and it came out really good.
Also, since they didn't have a budget, they had to use real people for all of the dead bodies. The only person that wasn't real was the burnt body in the flammable jelly trap after he died. The razor-wire trap guy was someone a producer played hockey with, and the "dead" guy in the reverse bear trap was actually one of the producers, Oren Koules. And some of the traps were actually working. I mean, not most of them, but in the trap in Jigsaw's lair, the nails were actually moving closer, and in Saw 0.5, James' friend designed the reverse beartrap 0.5, and so that was actually working and with the force that could rip someone's face apart. This also shows a lot more in the later movies, specifically V, where there was real water in the Water Cube trap and the walls were actually closing in at a force that could kill someone in the Glass Coffin trap.
But still, through all of these difficulties, the pushed through. And after lots of tough times in the editing room (not enough photos, not enough footage, etc.), they were finished and submitted it to Sundance, where they didn't win any awards. They also submitted it into another film festival before releasing it into theaters, but that wasn't such a big festival. And the rest is history.
Well, not really.
This is when we meet a pretty important figure in Saw history: Darren Lynn Bousman. Bousman was just a couple years younger than Wan and Whannell, and he also wanted to make his own film. However, after several attempts at asking production companies to give his the money to do it, they all rejected him because his pitch, named The Desperate, was, they said, too similar to the movie that came out the year before, Saw.
Now Wan and Whannell are celebrating their victory, and it was so big that people are wanting more. Lots of people asked them to make a sequel, which originally they didn't plan to do. They thought they, to quote, "sealed the door shut" on the Saw universe, but people opened the door just enough so that there's enough potential for another movie. But these 2, since they didn't plan on having a sequel, were very stuck. And then they met Bousman.
Since Bousman was looking for a film to make as his debut, and the W's (as they will be refered to from here on) were looking for an idea for their second movie, they got together and planned out the second movie, where Bousman and Whannell rewrote Bousman's script to match the Saw universe. Then they got working, using mostly the same people who worked on the original Saw, like Dave Armstrong, the DP, Kevin Greutert, one of the editors, and the producers Oren Koules and Mark Burg. except now they were given 25 days and a $2 million budget, which is still basically nothing but more than before.
Lots of Saw fans can also tell the difference between the original and the other movies. The difference is that in Saw, everything is sort of intertwined with one another, and that makes it harder to find out the plot twist at the end, and also it's a lot slower and plot-driven. One of the ways you can think of it is thinking about the beginning. It's around 17 minutes of figuring out characters, their situation, and what they're doing there. Plot. But with the Saw II, the way the story goes is that there are two plots going on at the same time, so you know that the plot twist is going to be those two plots coming together somehow. It's still plot driven, but less so. The intro to that movie is around 5 minutes long of someone dying in a violent trap set by Jigsaw. Does that make any sense?
Not a lot of movie critics like this version, since it's pretty diffrent from the original, but it was effective so it was used in every single one of the other movies (except for Saw X, I think. Haven't gotten to that one yet). But those critics have to understand that is was written originally for a completely different movie, and then it was forced to work with the Saw universe. So it isn't really the W's fault, or anyone who worked on the Saw franchise's. The W's were just in need of a plot, quick, and they found the perfect guy.
Anyway, this movie was filmed in Toronto instead of LA, and Wan wasn't the director anymore. Instead, they passed it onto Bousman, who would later direct the next 2 movies and Spiral, and Wan became an executive producer. But through all of the hurdles, it was also a hit, and was the beginning of the Saw franchise, ensuring the making of the next movie, Saw III.
If you ask enough people what horror movie franchise has gone on for too long, there will definitely be some answers that are Saw. I mean, with 10 movies, 11 coming on the 26th of September this year, and not including the half-movies, like Saw 0.5 and the scott Tibbs Documentary, it's understandable. Even the Friday the 13th movies stopped at around 12 in 2010 because they realized that it wasn't worth it anymore. Will Saw do the same? I mean, hopefully not.
But it's also important to know that all these movies (mostly) have a story to them. Which will be decribed very shortly because ironically I couldn't find much about the other ones.
Directed by Bousman, Whannell wrote it and Wan produced it (again). Lots of similar people working on this one, but the W's wanted this to be the last movie. Bousman didn't think so, so him and the W's splitted, he did Saw IV and they went and did Death Sentence and Dead Silence, which both came out in the same year so I honestly do not know which one came first. Budget is boosted to a whopping $4 million.
New movie, new cast, new look. Cast included Costas Mandylor and Scott Patterson, but the other people looked the same, minus the W's. It will be Bousman's last movie of the Saw franchise for 14 years. Budget is boosted to $10 million, which it will stay at for the rest of the main 7 movies.
Bousman leaves the Saw-world and is replaced by David Hackl, who was a production designer for Saw II-IV, and finally got his hands on a movie to direct, since Bousman went.
Hackl's time was short, and was instead replaced by Kevin Greutert (remember him?). Patterson is gone now, off to probably film another Gilmore Girls reunion. This is also one of the best Saw movies, according to most people, but this feel-good attitude doesn't last long when they are introduced to the crash and burn that is
A disgrace. Most of the OG's, like Armstrong, left already and it shows, because this movie is horrendous. Still is directed by Greutert, but now Cary Elwes is back!!! But he doesn't fix this movie. By a long shot. It's so bad that I don't even want to talk about it. Sadly, it was decided to be the last movie of the franchise (talk about leaving on a bad note), and so the legacy of Saw was over.
Until seven years later, the Spierig Brothers (Michael and Peter) decided to add onto the Saw franchise with Jigsaw (which I find kind of weird that they do, since Whannell mentions in an audio commentary of the first movie that Brisbon sucks but the Spierig Brothers are cool. Go here to the 37-second mark to see what I'm talking about). Written by Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg, there was a whole new crew of characters (except for Tobin Bell, who plays as Jigsaw), and it wasn't very good, but it was a lot better than the monstrosity that is
The story of Spiral is that Chris Rock met Whannell at some kind of get-together, and when he realized that he was the writer for Saw he said that he always wanted to make a Saw movie. So I guess he got his chance when he heard a new Saw movie was being written (by Goldfinger and Stolberg), so he got the main roll, and Bousman decided to direct it. However, even though the movie got an additional $10 million for its budget, this movie is definitely the weakest in the series. But I won't be harsh about it because hey, they tried their best.
Since both Jigsaw and Spiral didn't do very good, Goldfinger and Stolberg decided to write another movie, Saw X. But this time Greutert decided to direct it. However, unlike the other two, this one was most of the original cast, like Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, and Costas Mandylor. It was a huge hit and is also (along with VI) thought of as one of the best movies in the franchise. It might've been the extra $3 million that they got from the original $10 million budget, but something just worked. It was also probably the cast and that it actually had good traps and a good plot.
A movie that is coming out this year!!! It was supposed to come out last year but for some reason Lionsgate didn't. It was something along the lines of "they were trying to make Saw XI and another movie at the same time so the filming has been pushed back". I'm not sure. It is also being directed by Greutert and it will star Tobin Bell (I would hope so, anyway). Excited!!!
These are just for fun facts that I think will be interesting or funny idrk I just need to get them out
Thank you for listening to this Saw Rant. or not. Whatever. And in conclusion,