Saw: The Gory Box Office Smash That Birthed One Of Horror's Biggest Franchises

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

James Wan is just about as successful as one can be as far as directing movies for the masses goes. We're talking about the man who started The Conjuring Universe, as well as the blockbuster "Insidious" franchise. Even outside of horror, he's helmed "Furious 7" and "Aquaman," two of the highest-grossing movies of all time. The man has an almost impeccable track record. Every master starts somewhere, and for Wan, it started in 2004 with "Saw." The difference is that Wan, right out the gate, launched an enduring $1 billion franchise with next to no resources to speak of.

Wan, like any filmmaker, was trying to find a way to break into filmmaking after college. He and his frequent collaborator Leigh Whannell, of "The Invisible Man" and "Upgrade" fame, decided they were going to try and make a movie on their own. The only problem? Movies cost money. "We wanted to make a movie, then we checked our bank balances, and we realized this was going to be the first 40-dollar movie in history. We had no money, to speak of," said Leigh Whannell, who co-wrote and starred in "Saw," to IGN in 2004. Luckily, the two came up with an idea too good to be ignored, and the movie got made. And not only did it get made, but it birthed one of the biggest horror franchises in the history of cinema.

In this week's Tales from the Box Office, in honor of the release of "Saw X," we're looking back at the original "Saw," the unique way that Wan and Whannell managed to sell their pitch, why they ended up taking a deal from a much smaller production company, what happened when the movie hit theaters, and what lessons we can learn from it nearly 20 years later. Let's dig in, shall we?

In fairness, it is difficult to imagine a major Hollywood studio handing over a sizable budget to a pair of first-time filmmakers. But Evolution, whose Twisted Pictures division ended up handling the project, was willing to allow Wan to direct and Whannell to be one of the film's main stars. The catch? They were going to have to make the movie for $1.2 million. That's next to nothing for a theatrically released film. Luckily, Wan and Whannell planned it as a low-budget affair in the first place.

"Saw" opens with two strangers chained up in a room with no recollection of how they got there. Adam (Whannell) and oncologist Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) try to put the pieces together in a filthy bathroom with a bloody, seemingly dead man in the center of the room. They're forced to play the Jigsaw Killer's latest game before it's too late. The only way out? Cutting off your foot with a cheap hacksaw.

Despite the low budget, Wan was able to cast some A-class actors such as Elwes, as well as "Lethal Weapon" star Danny Glover as Detective Tapp, who is obsessed with trying to bring Jigsaw down. As for the Jigsaw Killer himself, aka John Kramer? It was character actor Tobin Bell who ultimately landed the role and, in his 60s, ended up completely redefining his entire career with a single role. Speaking in 2017, Bell explained his decision to take on the role, and a lot of it had to do with Glover:

"I had never worked with Danny Glover, and I wanted to work with him. I thought that three guys locked in a room was, like ... no one was making films about three guys locked in a room [...] Then, the ending, which I did not anticipate when I read the script. I thought, if they shoot this well, it could be one of those really shocking moments in film, that, if you do one of those, in an entire career, it's great."

Even though Wan didn't return to direct, "Saw II" opened exactly one year later in 2005 and was an even bigger hit, taking in $152.9 million. And so it went, as five more sequels followed annually through 2010's "Saw 3D," all of which were big hits. Even 2009's "Saw VI" earned $69.7 million against an $11 million budget, a return on investment that any studio in Hollywood would happily take to this day. Lionsgate always kept the budgets reasonable and delivered horror lovers a new chapter every single year until they felt the series had run out of juice. The genre hadn't really had something like this since the '80s when the "Friday the 13th" movies were a yearly occurrence. It's rare air.

Tobin Bell's Jigsaw became a horror icon and, despite dying in "Saw III," he has starred in every entry, including, rather improbably, "Saw X," which is actually a prequel that takes place between the events of the first two entries. The fact that Lionsgate wanted to do that this late in the game speaks volumes about Bell's place in the genre movie canon. Wan, in his first feature, delivered a character that will outlive us all. No small feat. To date, the films have collectively earned $1.02 billion worldwide and counting.

The films ended up being dubbed torture porn by the masses, even if Wan and Whannell disagree with that classification. Regardless, the films are unabashedly gory and, at that time, it wasn't all that common for such gory pictures to enter the mainstream in such a meaningful way. It arguably paved the way for a string of other gory hits as well, including Eli Roth's "Hostel," "The Hills Have Eyes" remake, and numerous others. "Saw" not only started a massive franchise, it gave way to a full-on mainstream gore trend as well. Not bad for a movie that was made by a couple of nobodies who sold the idea using a DVD.