Rights issues are commonplace in horror, often stemming from creative differences between co-creators on the future of their franchise. We’ve seen it with Friday the 13th —the decades long dispute between director Sean Cunningham and Victor Miller created issues in making new movies — and in 2025 we witnessed something similar with the beloved Saw franchise.
While Saw XI was originally slated for September 26th 2025, unrest behind the scenes would result in delays and uncertainty about the future of the franchise. Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures each owned 50% of the rights to the franchise each, but following disagreements between the two, producers Oren Koules and Mark Burg from Twisted Pictures would sell their half of the rights to Blumhouse. CEO Jason Blum would then hand the reigns back to James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the original writer and director team behind Saw (2004), which in turn have sparked rumours and speculation about a potential reboot.
My take on this is that a full reboot for this particular franchise would be a huge mistake and detrimental to how people feel about these movies. Saw X reached new heights for the franchise from a critical perspective and beat out the previous two poorly received and disconnected movies at the box office. Clearly there is still demand for this story, and from what we knew about Saw XI prior to the Blumhouse acquisition, things seemed to be moving in a positive direction.
If you’ve spent any time in Saw fandom communities online you would see the level of dedication from the fans, and their attachment to this story and these characters. This isn’t just a franchise that people show up to the cinema for, this is a franchise that has cultivated a community around it, and if you’ve seen any behind the scenes interviews or footage from the Saw movies you’ll know it’s exactly the same behind the camera. One of the reasons these movies have become so successful and interconnected is the bond between the filmmakers — much of the crew from each movie return for the next, and some of the directors would be promoted after working on previous movies. Saw V director David Hackl worked as the production designer on the previous 3 movies, Saw VI, 3-D and X director Kevin Greutert was the editor for the first 5 movies, and composer Charlie Clouser has worked on every Saw movie to date, and that’s just naming a few. My point is that the collaboration and dynamic between the filmmakers and crew is clearly an integral part of the franchise, and that potentially being lost following the Blumhouse acquisition could be extremely damaging.
While it may sound contradictory after my last point, I am not sure if the rights returning to James Wan and Leigh Whannell is necessarily best for the franchise either. Neither Wan nor Whannell have been creatively involved with these movies since III, and Whannell in particular has been known to voice his distaste for the saga past III — including claiming not to know who Detective Hoffman is despite creating that character for III. Since the pair haven’t been involved with the franchise for so long, I find it hard to believe they know what’s right for it at this point in time, and I find it even less likely that they are in tune with what the fans want either.
Blumhouse is a divisive studio to say the least. Their output is generally quite hit-or-miss, with the low budget production model often leading to the rushed and poor execution of studio horror. Blumhouse also has not had the best track record when it comes to handling franchises — the Paranormal Activity, Insidious and Purge movies all being driven into the ground over time, trading quality for quantity. David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy under Blumhouse would suffer from diminishing returns and less critical acclaim after the first movie, and the studio’s approach to M3GAN lead to 2.0 becoming one of the biggest box office flops of the year. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some great movies produced under the Blumhouse banner, but their history with franchises and hit-or-miss record doesn’t fill me with hope.
There are many people who would have the exact opposite opinion to this, looking forward to the possibility of better made movies by Wan and Whannell. It’s hardly a secret that a significant portion of movie buffs look down on these movies and treat them as lesser movies, and misleading comments are often made about certain aspects of the franchise. For me, I don’t need Saw movies to be perfect. I love the ongoing soap opera storyline, the silly transitions and crazy editing, the cringe inducing gore, the returning characters, and everything else this saga has brought us. I don’t want to lose what makes these movies special to people.
