Drug addicts, doctors, renegade police offices and anyone else that may need “to help themselves” should stay on edge as it looks like the Jigsaw Killer will be on the lamb for the foreseeable future as Lionsgate recently stated that they will continue making the Rube Goldberg horror series of Saw movies “as long as we make money.”
Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns spoke those exact words at the Median and Money conference in New York on Thursday. To further prove his point, the confident Burns states that Dirty Dancing, 20 years after its debut, still sells an average of 2,000 DVDs per day.
While the most recent Saw VI didn’t perform as well as its predecessors, most people are attributing its dramatic drop off to the phenomenon of Paranormal Activity. I know most people say that the Saw stories aren’t good and it’s the same thing over and over, but the box office numbers don’t lie and while the $26.9 million of Saw VI is less than half of what Saw V took in, it still brought in over double its production budget of $11 million. That’s without even considering how much more than that it will make on home video.
Still, if there’s one thing the Saw franchise knows, it’s about making money. Check out how this money making machine has done over the years for the fat cats at Lionsgate.
Saw – $55.2 Million
Saw II – $87 Million
Saw III – $80.2 Million
Saw IV – $63.3 Million
Saw V – $57.7 Million
Saw VI – $26.9 Million
Those figures are just the domestic box office. You can almost triple those numbers when you add in the foreign box office, DVD sales, cable rights and everything else that comes out of each Saw incarnation.
While we’ve previously reported about plans for next year’s Saw VII, Lionsgate has schedule Saw VIII as well for 2011. Why not Saw VIIII and Saw X? Well, some may say that they’re being cautious, but the real reason is that their original deal with Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell were for the first movie with a seven sequel option.
If Lionsgate wants anymore after Saw VIII, it looks like they’re going to have give up some more money to Wan and Whannell, which just may be worth it to have the guaranteed successful film and cash injection.
What do you think? How long does the Saw franchise have left?
Like clockwork you can catch the next installment, Saw VIII, in October, 2010. While I’m at it, I’ll just throw it out there that you can expect to see Saw VIII October, 2011… I’m sure you can continue with this on your own. Although, in case you’re wondering. Saw MCXXII comes out October, 3126 (Unless the world ends in 2012).
