SAW Success Spawns Sequel

Originally Published: November 6, 2004

After SAW’s impressive $18.3 million dollar opening weekend, Lions Gate Films has announced the immediate development of SAW 2. The sequel is being fast-tracked for a Halloween 2005 release date.

The news of the SAW sequel was announced yesterday by PETER BLOCK, Lions Gate Films President of Acquisitions, Television and Co-Productions and Twisted Pictures MARK BURG, OREN KOULES and GREGG HOFFMAN.

“We were confident going into this weekend as the only new horror release that we would hit our target audience of genre fans, but this has exceeded all our expectations,” said TOM ORTENBERG, President of Lions Gate Films Releasing. “With SAW JAMES WAN and LEIGH WHANNELL have tapped into filmgoers’ most base fears and have created something that people immediately feel they need to talk about with others, and see again to catch clues they may have missed the first time,” he added.

“We are thrilled about the strong opening weekend of SAW. Lions Gate’s marketing and distribution team has done a phenomenal job and we’re very excited to be partnering with them again on SAW 2,” said producers Burg, Koules and Hoffman in a company issued press release.

What remains to be seen is whether the creative team behind SAW, director JAMES WAN and screenwriter LEIGH WHANNELL, will return to work on the sequel. Nothing about either person’s involvement was mentioned in the Lions Gate press release.