James Wan, Leigh Whannell, and Producer Josh Small on Returning to “Saw” at Sundance
In 2004, a low-budget horror film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and changed the genre forever. Saw introduced the world to Jigsaw and spawned a billion-dollar franchise known for its intricate traps and twisting continuity. Twenty-two years later, the film returned to Park City for a legacy screening, bringing creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell back to where it all began.
FandomWire caught up with Wan, Whannell, and Atomic Monster producer Josh Small on the red carpet to discuss the franchise’s enduring legacy and the duo’s plans to strip away the “soap opera” elements and take the series back to basics.
Saw Sundance Interview
FandomWire: Josh, as the series returns to James Wan, how do you balance bringing back the heart of the original franchise while trying to capture a new Gen Z audience?
Josh Small: Oh my gosh, you balance it because Jigsaw is coming back to the screen. It’s going to be something new for new audiences, but something that’s a throwback for the existing audiences that have loved this franchise for ten movies. You do that by bringing back the original creators to do something amazing that gets both of those groups interested.
FW: As the series returns, is the current vision for it to be something more linear or are there plans for spinoffs?
Small: I gotta leave that to these guys down here. I can’t get in their brain about what amazing things they’re going to create, but I’m really excited about whatever they’ve got.
FW: Why do you think this series has had such staying power since its premiere?
Small: That’s a great question. I think James and Leigh created something that was just so different when it came out. It was so different from anything that existed back then. I think when you do something like that and can captivate an audience like that, you can follow up on it.
FW: James and Leigh, congratulations on being back here. As you return to this series, I’m curious. The franchise is built upon almost this soap operatic story with complex cop plots. As you rewrite, are you looking to elevate the horror and make the story simpler, or do you want to continue the world previously built?
Leigh Whannell: I was going to say, a lot of what you’re referring to, these so-called operatic storylines, a lot of that came after us. It didn’t have anything to do with us. James directed the first one, and that was it for him. And then I wrote two sequels, and that was it for me. So we feel like a new start. We don’t want to continue what was being done before.
We kind of want to do something fresh and maybe take it back to basics. I love the simplicity of the first film. That’s something that I always loved about it. The games that were being played were on a very tactile, handheld level. And that’s where I think we’d like to take it.
James Wan: Yeah. I definitely want to take it back to the spirit of what Leigh and I came up with on the first one, but hopefully find new ways into it that we haven’t seen before. I think that’s important.
Saw screened at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, which ran January 22-February 2 in Park City and Salt Lake City, UT, and January 30-February 2 online.
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