WARNING: This page contains no small number of spoilers, but many of the examples below will assume you have knowledge of the spoilers of the first four films — and as such, those spoilers go untagged. Even then it's advised to have finished watching the series first. Read on or go back — make your choice.
Subpages by movie:
General examples:
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Main franchise:
Main Franchise
- Cash-Cow Franchise:
- After the massive success of the first three films, the Saw franchise proved to be a cash cow for Lionsgate, standing as its biggest franchise for a while until the The Hunger Games and John Wick series began. Throughout the next four films (including the original Grand Finale), several entries in other media like video games and a theme park ride were released, though they weren't as profitable as the films themselves.
- In the present, the franchise seems to be on its way to return to this status, since the current two films released after the former finale proved to be just as (if not more) successful, with a Dead by Daylight DLC released and a promotional podcast aired between them, and Lionsgate announced plans to produce five more films and the franchise's first TV series afterwards.
- Production Nickname: Billy the Puppet's name was originally a Production Nickname before it became official, hence why it wasn't said anywhere in the franchise itself.
Movies:
Movies
- Absurdly Short Production Time: A staple of the series. While post-production time varies greatly, all the films are filmed in less than three months.
- Saw was filmed in 18 days.
- Saw II was filmed in 25 days.
- Saw III was filmed in 27 days.
- Saw IV took the shortest time to film by a narrow margin to Saw, at 17 days.
- Saw V was filmed in 42 days.
- Saw VI was filmed in 44 days.
- Saw 3D was filmed in 63 days.
- Jigsaw didn't have exact dates of its filming published, but it's stated to have taken place between November 2016 and January 2017 (about two months).
- Spiral was filmed in 51 days.
- Saw X is the first exception, taking about four months to film between October 2022 and February 2023, making it the installment with the longest filming time (and surpassing Saw 3D in that regard).
- Ascended Fanon: For years, it had been a fan theory that the man limping and putting the key behind Michael's eye in the video shown in Saw II was Lawrence Gordon (which Darren Lynn Bousman mentioned in the DVD commentary of Saw II). Fans were also convinced that he assisted in other traps that required medical knowledge. In Saw 3D, this became canonical (despite director Kevin Greutert's original desire to have him get revenge against Jigsaw and his accomplices).
- Billing Displacement: After the first movie, Tobin Bell was always top-billed in most movies in the series (except Jigsaw and Spiral, the latter in which he's absent for the first time in the series) due to him playing Jigsaw, even after Saw III, where Jigsaw is already dead and only appears in a handful of flashbacks and tapes. It got to the point that many of the posters from that point onwards featured a presentation of Jigsaw's face in some way.
- Compilation Re-release: Ever since the release of Saw II, there have been a number of increasingly large DVD/Blu-ray compilations of multiple films in the series, starting with a two-movie pack including the first two films and culminating with a "20th Anniversary Collection" box set containing all the ten films up to Saw X.
- Completely Different Title:
- In most of Latin America, the series' title is changed to El Juego del Miedo (The Game of Fear). Spiral in particular is re-titled Espiral: El Juego del Miedo Continúa (Spiral: The Game of Fear Continues, compared to the original subtitle, From the Book of Saw).
- The series is known as Jogos Mortais (Deadly Games) in Brazil.
- The series was titled 奪魂鋸 (Soul-Slashing Saw) in Taiwan, 电锯惊魂 (Frightening Saw) in mainland China and 恐懼鬥室 (Escape Room of Terror) in Hong Kong.
- Saw 3D was titled 恐懼鬥室3D之終極審判 (Escape Room of Terror 3D: The Ultimate Trial) in Hong Kong.
- Jigsaw was titled 奪魂鋸：遊戲重啟 (Soul-Slashing Saw: Restart) in Taiwan and 恐懼鬥室之狂魔再現 (Escape Room of Terror: Return of the Monster) in Hong Kong.
- Spiral was titled 死亡漩渦：奪魂鋸新遊戲 (Spiral of Death: Soul-Slashing Saw's New Game) in Taiwan and 漩渦：恐懼鬥室新遊戲 (Spiral: Escape Room of Terror's New Game) in Hong Kong.
- In Croatia, the series is re-titled Jigsaw Puzzle of Terror.
- Creator Backlash: Leigh Whannell has been on record for a while about his belief that it would've been best for the series to stop after three films as was originally planned. In a 2022 tweet from his now-deleted Twitter account, he clarified that he didn't follow any of the media released afterwards, stating that he hasn't seen V or VI to this day and doesn't know who Hoffman is.
- Descended Creator:
- Leigh Whannell wrote Saw and Saw III, wherein he played Adam.
- Executive producer Oren Koules plays Donnie Greco (the dormant man that Amanda had to kill in her test) in Saw. His role wasn't cited in the cast listing of the film's credits.
- In the DVD commentary of Saw II (and as a response to a fan theory he saw on message boards in the internet), director Darren Lynn Bousman stated that he was the one who played the figure (initially meant to be Jigsaw until the theory became Ascended Fanon later in Saw 3D) who's seen placing the key behind Michael's eye in the correspondent video tape. He further said that he hobbled around to give flavor to the figure's movement (as well as to show the progress of Jigsaw's cancer since the first film).
- The people who leave the elevator that Hoffman goes to in Saw V were played by several of the film's writers and producers.
- DVD Commentary: Most of the DVDs come with at least one commentary from directors, actors, writers, and producers. They tend to involve hilarious comments or antics, and YMMV about when they start to become more entertaining than the actual films.
- Executive Meddling:
- In general, it's been stated by numerous sources that the films from Saw IV to Saw 3D had a rough maximum runtime of 90 minutes set by the executive producers (they were allowed to surpass said maximum by a bit, but not significantly), which led to numerous changes and cut content from these movies' original drafts.
- Saw III:
- Saw III was intended by the franchise's original creators to be the finale for the series. The executive producers wanted more sequels, and had the writers thus make changes to the film to leave room open for future installments. Many of these were fairly minor, such as a shot of John pouring wax over a tape that later played into Saw IV.
- The biggest change, however, was that of Eric's fate. In the original cut, Amanda was supposed to have stabbed him in the neck with a knife, solidifying her transition to a full-out murderer killing out of malice (she had previously asphyxiated Adam as a Mercy Kill). The producers forced director Darren Lynn Bousman to cut it out to leave room for Eric to return in a later film. Thus, the scene now ends abruptly with Amanda simply walking over towards Eric, and an ADR line of John later saying to Amanda that she had merely left him for dead was added. Keep in mind that Eric's actor Donnie Wahlberg only showed up for Saw III with the promise that Eric would be killed off, so he was pretty pissed off when they cut out the scene. Bousman had to beg him to come back for Saw IV.
- Saw 3D:
- Saw 3D's storyline was originally going to be shared between two movies, the second one being centered around what Gordon did over the course of the previous movies as an accomplice of Jigsaw. Due to the underperforming box office results of Saw VI, the executives condensed the two planned movies into Saw 3D.
- A massively cunning, yet very dickish move by Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures happened two weeks before the shooting of Saw 3D began. They contractually forced the director of Saw VI, Kevin Greutert, to return and direct Saw 3D while having David Hackl, the original director who previously directed Saw V, shifted over to a yet-unconfirmed Lionsgate movie. This was because Greutert was originally set to direct Paranormal Activity 2, which was scheduled to be released on the same date as Saw 3D in a similar situation to how the first Paranormal Activity film contended with Saw VI in 2009. Needless to say, both Greutert and Hackl didn't take that move very well.
- Fake American:
- From the first film, Adam and Lawrence, played by the Australian Leigh Whannell and the English Cary Elwes, respectively. The former maintains his accent substantially better than the latter.
- Costas Mandylor, who plays Hoffman in Saw III to 3D, is also Australian and impressively, his accent never slips noticeably once throughout the five movies where Hoffman appears.
- Angus Macfadyen, the actor of Jeff in Saw III and IV, is Scottish, and he also does an admirable job of keeping his natural accent from slipping too much.
- Matt Passmore, who plays Logan in Jigsaw, is yet another Australian, and pulls off a reasonable accent as well.
- Franchise Killer: Saw VI was by no means a flop overall, and was widely considered by critics and fans of the series to be a much better film than the previous two movies released before it. However, it was by far the lowest-grossing film in the series, especially at the domestic box office, where its intake of just $27.7 million was barely half that of the first and fifth films (the previous lowest-grossing entries in the series). When combined with the box office failure of similar films in the late 2000s and the blockbuster success of Paranormal Activity, the film that Saw VI competed with that October (and which couldn't have been more different in terms of tone), Lionsgate saw the writing on the wall and pulled the plug after the next installment. While Saw 3D was a hit internationally (with its box office intake outside North America setting a series record), it wasn't enough to save the franchise, not with its domestic box office performance being the second-worst in the series behind only Saw VI. Whereas new Saw movies had come out annually before Saw 3D, to the point where ads for later films credibly marketed it as a Halloween tradition, it would be seven years after that before the franchise got a new installment, and it took another four years to get yet another film.
- Franchise Zombie:
- James Wan and Leigh Whannell wanted to end the series with the third film, closing the book on Jigsaw and Amanda by killing both of them off. However, with the first two films having been massive hits, producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules viewed the series as Lionsgate's first major franchise, and forced Whannell and the writers to make numerous changes to the film in order to leave the door open for further installments. Indeed, there were five more films planned afterwards, with a new killer taking up the Jigsaw mantle and Wan and Whannell only staying on as executive producers with no creative input. While these films vary between positive and negative general reception, most fans view them overall as a step down from the first three, and they had lower box office results than the third film's peak (although most still did better than the first film). The diminishing revenue of Saw VI led to the producers combining the last two planned films into one, resulting in the production and release of the original finale Saw 3D, which generated much better revenue.
- This was taken further when Jigsaw, which had a completely new production team, came out years later, seeking to re-launch the franchise. Although no direct follow-up to it has been made yet, it left the door open for another film, Spiral, whose reception was arguably at the same level as the first three films.
- Harpo Does Something Funny: According to a DVD commentary, Tobin Bell wrote large parts of Jigsaw's dialogue while they filmed the movies, to the point that scripts from some of the movies would simply include "Insert Tobin Bell dialogue" in dialogue lines said by Jigsaw.
- Irony as She Is Cast: Despite being best known for his part in the franchise, Tobin Bell says that he isn't and never has been a fan of horror films.
- Meme Acknowledgement: The official Twitter account for the movies has acknowledged the existence of the shitpost account "@jigsaw_quotes".
- No Stunt Double: As seen in behind the scenes segments on how the traps are made, plenty of the traps (even the most dangerous) had the actor themselves with special precautions in place, rather than a stunt double. Namely, in Saw V, it was really Joris Jarsky (Seth Baxter) and Scott Patterson (Peter Strahm) in the Pendulum Trap and Water Cube.note
- Not Screened for Critics: The franchise notably stayed off Richard Roeper's "Worst Movies of 2007" list specifically because of this, as well as the fact that he didn't want to watch the films in his free time.
- Posthumous Credit: Producer Gregg Hoffman died shortly after the release of Saw II. James Wan and Leigh Whannell dedicated Saw III to Hoffman's memory, with Mark Hoffman being named after him, and he received a posthumous production credit for every film in the series up to Jigsaw.
- Promoted Fanboy:
- Chester Bennington was a huge fan of the series long before he got a role in Saw 3D.
- Jigsaw:
- The film's writers, Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger, are longtime Saw fans who had spent two years pursuing the opportunity to write an installment in the franchise before they were able to pitch their idea. They eventually returned as writers for Spiral and Saw X.
- Laura Vandervoort is a fan of the franchise and the Spierig Brothers. That, alongside the Spierigs' directing role in the film, was one of the reasons she was casted as Anna.
- Chris Rock is a huge fan of the franchise, and pitched the idea of Spiral to the film's producers.
- Recycled Set:
- To save money, the Bathroom set in Saw III was reused from the Saw parody in Scary Movie 4.
- It was never explicitly stated by the producers, but the set used for the bread factory where Fitch's test takes place in Spiral is clearly the same one for the warehouse that Edgar enters in Jigsaw.
- Refitted for Sequel:
- The Denlon family's (who were introduced in Saw III) surname was taken from Amanda's original name of Amanda Denlon in early scripts of the first film.
- The Knife Chair from Saw IV was made out of a similar trap conceptualized for Saw IInote , which involved a waffle grill instead of the former trap's knife mechanism.
- In the Saw V home video extra "The Making of the Cube Trap", Patrick Melton mentions that the Water Cube was initially written for use in Saw IV before being moved to V for being deemed better in that film.
- Dr. Gordon's return since the first film for Saw 3D was initially slated to happen in Saw VI as an idea from Kevin Greutert. The same also applies for some of the survivors from previous films who were seen at the Jigsaw Survivor Group's meeting.
- The concept of pulling one's own teeth out for the Wisdom Teeth Combination in Saw 3D was taken from an early version of the Classroom Trap from Saw III where Troy had to pull chains from his teeth among other minor parts. The combination itself was also originally featured in an early script of Saw IV.
- The Cycle Trap's concept from Jigsaw was recycled from an unused blender-like trap that was featured in the aforementioned script for Saw IV.
- Release Date Change: When it was first announced, Saw XI was originally planned to be released on September 27, 2024, before later being moved forward to September 26, 2025.
- Sequel Gap:
- 7 years passed between the releases of Saw 3D and Jigsaw.
- Although Saw X was released two years after the previous film, Spiral, it returns to the storyline spanning between Saw and Saw II as an Interquel; it was released almost 19 and 18 years, respectively, after those two films, and counting the rest of the first seven films up to 3D, the gap is close to 13 years.
- Star-Making Role: For decades prior, Tobin Bell had been a fairly familiar face to audiences both in film and TV, but his role as Jigsaw gave him a big boost in recognition.
- Viral Marketing: With Saw 3D intended to be the Grand Finale, an ARG of Bobby and the various survivors of Jigsaw was done for it, including those whose fates were left hanging like Dr. Gordon.
- Word of God: According to the writers' commentary track on the Saw 3D DVD, the two men with Dr. Gordon when he captures Hoffman at the end of the film are Brad and Ryan, the surviving victims of the film's opening trap.
- Working Title:
- In a similar manner to its labelling as Saw: The Final Chapter in home video releases, Saw 3D was originally going to be titled Saw 3D: Endgame, if the opening title from an earlier script of the film is any indication.
- Jigsaw had the title of Saw: Legacy. Curiously enough, it was used in the Japanese release as a subtitle, with the resulting title being Jigsaw: Saw Legacy.
- Spiral was first announced as The Organ Donor.
- Write What You Know: The idea of John being terminally ill with cancer that spread to his brain (specifically, it originated from his colon) came from Leigh Whannell, who was suffering constant migraines while writing the first film's script, so much that he went to get a diagnosis out of worry that he might have a brain tumor.
- Write Who You Know: According to James Wan in an interview, Zep was based on a real-life criminal he knew about, who would break into homes and tickle the feet of children. The twist that Zep isn't the real Jigsaw (as well as Jigsaw's jigsaw puzzle symbology) was based on the fact that upon his arrest, the criminal said that he was being forced to tickle the children after he was sent a jigsaw puzzle piece as a post message.
Video games:
Video Games
- Dummied Out: In the final two chapters of the first game, you see some sewing kits. It looks like they would be tools to help make traps, but none of the ones you can make require them. It's likely there were more traps that didn't make it to the full game. Notably, you can't actually pick up the sewing kits except for one near the end, which does nothing.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: Physical copies of both video games (for Xbox 360 as well as PlayStation 3) tend to be quite expensive as of 2021.
