Movies - TV
Saw II Started Its Life As A Movie Separate From The Franchise
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
In Hollywood's history, several movies started out as original concepts that were later used as inspiration for other franchises. This was the case with Darren Lynn Bousman's 2005 sequel "Saw II," which was intended to be a standalone film titled "The Desperate" but ended up joining the franchise because Bousman had trouble selling the script.
Bousman said, “It was kind of scary because everyone who was reading it was turning it down because ‘it was too close to a movie called ‘Saw’ at Sundance; not interested.’” The only one interested in the film was a German studio, but this changed when the “Saw” cinematographer David A. Armstrong took Bousman’s script to the film’s producer, Greg Hoffman.
The director explained, “The next day, Greg Hoffman called me [...] and was like ‘You’re not doing this in Germany; you’re going to come to my office tomorrow.’” Although they changed much of the original script for “Saw II” to incorporate Jigsaw into the movie, Bousman’s characters remained, and the film became a success, making $147 million worldwide.