Saw XI Announced
If you had any doubts about this, Lionsgate is laying them to rest: the Saw franchise will continue. In an Instagram post, Lionsgate announced that the next in the horror series, Saw XI, will be released in theaters on September 27, 2024. This comes after the tenth Saw film, Saw X, raked in $107.7 million on a $13 million budget. Tobin Bell is expected to return as John Kramer, alias Jigsaw, the killer – or inspiration for future killers, in some cases – of the franchise. No other word on Saw XI is available right now, but it will have to come together pretty quickly to make its release date.
This isn’t surprising; Saw is the new big horror franchise, and Jigsaw is the modern equivalent of Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger; they will make more as long as they’re profitable, and with the budgets being so low, they’ll have to go out of their way to screw up the series. I don’t know much about the Saw films; I watched the first one because someone else wanted to see it, and I never came back because it’s not really my thing. But with ten successful films, it’s earned its audience and its longevity, and I’m pleased that Tobin Bell, who’s been a great screen presence for a long time, has something that made him famous. I wonder if the people behind the Saw movies are kicking themselves for killing the character so early; they now have to contrive ways for him to show up, with Saw X being a sort of prequel set between the first and second movies. Regardless, it clearly hasn’t slowed the franchise down, and I doubt we’ll see the last of Saw for a long time.
