15 Years Ago, The Most Hated Saw Movie Still Made A Killing At The Box Office

(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.)

"Starting with the release of 'Saw VI,' and the disappointing box-office performance, it's been a dark time for me, no question." Those are the words of longtime "Saw" franchise editor and director Kevin Greutert, speaking with Entertainment Weekly in 2010 ahead of the release of "Saw 3D." At the time, the movie was also known as "Saw: The Final Chapter," seeking to put an end to the saga of Jigsaw after seven consecutive years of cinematic carnage.

Director James Wan's "Saw" became an unexpected box office smash in 2004, pulling in $103 million worldwide against a minuscule $1.2 million budget. Lionsgate then made it an annual tradition. But as Greutert points out, despite being well-liked by devotees of the franchise, "Saw VI" made just shy of $70 million, by far the lowest-grossing entry up to that point.

All the same, Lionsgate wanted the director to finish what he started with one last hoorah. It would go down as the worst-rated movie in the history of the franchise. Despite itself, it was also a major financial success.

In this week's Tales from the Box Office, we're looking back at "Saw 3D" in honor of its 15th anniversary. We'll go over how it came to be, why Greutert was essentially forced into directing it, what happened when it hit theaters, what happened in the aftermath of its release, and what lessons we can learn from it all these years later. Let's dig in, shall we?

As a fierce battle rages over Jigsaw's (Tobin Bell) terrible legacy, survivors seek support from a fellow survivor and self-help guru named Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery), who harbors a dark secret. Namely, he lied about surviving one of Jigsaw's games to achieve fame and fortune. Meanwhile, crooked cop Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) seeks revenge against Jigsaw's wife as well as Dagen for his lies.

As a franchise, despite coming off a low point with "Saw VI," it's worth pointing out that this was still a wildly consistent moneymaker for Lionsgate. Even that movie was made on an $11 million budget, meaning it was more than profitable for the studio. A bit of the problem is that "Saw V" was viewed as such a downgrade for the series that it hurt "VI" financially, despite the fact that it was a major improvement, critically speaking.

Lionsgate wanted to lean into the good they had going. They certainly weren't going to go back to "Saw V" director David Hackl. They had every intention of leaning once again on Greutert's talents, as he had been with the series as an editor dating back to the original. More on that in a moment.

As for the pitch? Timing was everything here, and Hollywood's 2000s 3D craze was off to the races. That was in no small part thanks to James Cameron's 2009 sci-fi smash "Avatar," which made more than $2.7 billion in its original run, becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time up to that point. Lionsgate wanted Jigsaw to get in on the trend.

At that particular moment in time, the franchise needed a hook. Part of the problem is that the "Saw" franchise had been chasing its tail for several years, becoming an accidental victim of its own success. Early on in the series, it was revealed that Tobin Bell's John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, had incurable cancer that was going to kill him. It did indeed kill him relatively early on, with Kramer kicking the bucket at the end of "Saw III."

From then on, it was about others carrying on Kramer's work in his stead, with Amanda (Shawnee Smith) and Detective Hoffman largely carrying that torch. By the end of "Saw IV," Kramer's legacy was firmly in Hoffman's hands. Even so, the series needed Bell on board, finding ways to force him in through flashbacks, old recordings, etc. It would be like trying to continue the "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise without Freddy. It was difficult.

Series producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules later admitted that killing John Kramer so early on was a mistake. All the same, what's done was done, and to get around that glaring issue, the "Saw" franchise timeline got increasingly wonky and the twists got wackier. The series never fully managed to escape the shadow that Bell's Jigsaw cast over it. That was something that the so-called "Final Chapter" needed to contend with.

Around this time, another major horror franchise launched into the spotlight in the form of "Paranormal Activity," one of the most surprising hits in box office history. On a shoestring budget, it made $194 million worldwide, with Paramount moving quickly on a sequel. They originally tapped Greutert to helm what would become "Paranormal Activity 2." He even spent months developing the project. Then, Lionsgate stepped in.

Deciding to exercise an option on his contract, Lionsgate forced Greutert to direct "Saw 3D," pulling him away from "Paranormal Activity 2." On his personal blog in January 2010, in a post that was later deleted, Greutert expressed strong dissatisfaction with the situation, saying the following:

"Woo hoo! Lawyers are sending me to Canada tomorrow! I just had the task of telling my 83 year old mother that no, I'm not going to be allowed to direct the movie we were all so excited about when my family last got together, and that I'm being forced to leave town before getting a chance to see her again. Yes, I'll be filming people getting tortured YET AGAIN. So we'll have to put off me making a film she can actually watch for another year. I'm not making this s*** up."

"There was a lot of crazy turmoil in this production," Greutert later said in that same, pre-release EW interview. "Frankly, I'm glad it's over. Because there were definitely things that I would have done a lot differently if I had been on the film from the beginning. But at the same time, they wouldn't have brought me on so suddenly and at the last minute if they didn't trust my opinion."

Greutert largely played ball during the press tour, but there's no denying he wouldn't have chosen to leave "Paranormal Activity 2." In any event, he did his job, and Lionsgate leaned heavily on the ending of it all as well as the 3D gimmick in the marketing. They had to do something because critics were very much not on the movie's side. "Saw 3D" boasts a franchise-worst 9% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

That said, these movies were never critical darlings, and with a Halloween-friendly release date, as well as the promise of an ending, horror lovers showed up on opening weekend anyway. "Saw 3D" hit theaters on the weekend of October 29, 2010, topping the charts with $22.5 million. "Paranormal Activity 2" came in at number two with $16.5 million on its second weekend. Originally, the movies were set to go head-to-head. Mercifully, that didn't happen.

Even though the movie fell off a cliff once "Megamind" and "Due Date" arrived the following weekend. It was firmly out of the top ten by its fourth weekend. It hardly mattered. The 3D gimmick worked like a charm, and the intended audience showed up in droves. It was a major rebound for the series commercially, even if it was a disaster critically.

"Saw 3D" finished its run with $45.7 million domestically to go with a whopping $90.4 million internationally for a grand total of $136.1 million worldwide. 

Even against a reported $17 million budget — the biggest for any of these movies up to that point — it was a huge win for the studio. The only entries that made more were "Saw III" ($164.8 million), "Saw II" ($152.9 million), and "Saw IV" ($139.3 million). All the same, Lionsgate stuck to their word and retired the franchise – for a time anyway.

"If you start making movies that don't live up to the 'greatest hits' in the series, it denigrates the past, and nobody wants that. We want this to go down in history as a great franchise. I think it is the last Saw movie," Greutert said to EW at the time. "But it's absolutely my last Saw movie."

It wasn't the last "Saw" movie, nor was it Greutert's last "Saw" movie. Just over a year later, in December 2011, then-Lionsgate Vice Chairman Michael Burns stated, "I'm sure, someday, you'll see 'Saw' back in the picture." That day eventually came, albeit several years later, with "Jigsaw" in 2017. It once again fudged with the timeline so that Bell could return as John Kramer once more. It was a welcome return, bringing in over $104 million globally.

The series then took a turn with the spin-off, "Spiral: From the Book of Saw." It made just $40 million. Then, Lionsgate got the band back together with Greutert returning to direct 2023's "Saw X," which was met with the best reviews for any movie in the series. Taking place between the events of the first two movies, it allowed for a back-to-basics approach that audiences ate up to the tune of $125.3 million worldwide.

What's true is that "Saw" is now a $1.1 billion franchise with a massive global footprint that includes escape rooms, theme park attractions, tons of merchandise, and more. It's also true that "Saw 3D" was a creative low point that got in on the right trend at the right time, positioning itself to capitalize despite its miserable reception. Case in point, per Variety, 3D ticket sales accounted for a staggering 92% of the movie's opening. Save for some memorable kills, the film remains largely maligned to this day.

The big lesson here is that a gimmick only gets you so far. What Greutert proved with both "Saw VI" and "Saw X" is that, when motivated to be there, he is amongst the best directors to ever put John Kramer on the silver screen. When forced to be there? That's a different story. It's hard to imagine any creative person giving their best under a situation like this. It's in many ways not surprising that the movie didn't turn out.

As the "Saw" franchise rights at now with Blumhouse as "Saw 11," as planned, was scrapped, the franchise's new owners would do well to learn from the sins of the past. The only reason an 11th "Saw" movie should exist is if someone has a good creative reason to bring it into existence. Forcing something for purely commercial reasons is a fast-burning fuel with a tank that runs out rapidly. If longevity is the key, a franchise can't suffer too many misfires as rough as "Saw 3D."