Saw X executive producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules, who have been with the franchise since its inception, candidly address the decision to kill off Jigsaw back in Saw III. Released in 2006, the third installment in the popular horror franchise sees Tobin Bell’s John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, return with more deadly traps, this time also abducting a doctor to keep himself alive. Jigsaw succumbs to his cancer in the film, but would continue to return in almost every subsequent installment through various means.
Now, as Saw X‘s hits theaters, Burg and Koules reflect on the decision to kill Jigsaw in Saw III in a recent interview with IndieWire. Had they known how long the franchise would continue, it sounds like they may have approached the character a little differently. Check out Burg’s full comment below:
“If I had to do it again, I might not have killed Tobin Bell in ‘Saw III’. That might have been a mistake.”
Saw Franchise Timeline Explained
Although he very definitively dies in the third movie, Jigsaw continues to be a fixture of the franchise. He regularly appears in the sequels in flashbacks, making the Saw franchise timeline a little confusing. Generally speaking, the movies are best watched in the order that they released, but the many flashbacks can admittedly make things a little confusing and can allow for some viewing flexibility.
2017’s Jigsaw, for example, despite taking place about 10 years after Saw III, features many sequences set before the events of the first movie, making it not totally unreasonable to place it first in the timeline. Then comes the original Saw in 2004 and Saw II in 2005. Saw X takes place between the second and third movies, following John as he seeks treatment for his terminal cancer. When he finds himself the victim of a medical scam in Mexico, however, he exacts his brutal form of revenge upon his scammers.
The latest movie is then followed by Saw III (2006) and Saw IV (2007), which actually occur at the same time. Then comes Saw V (2008), Saw VI (2009), the confusingly named Saw 3D: The Final Chapter (2010), and then Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021), all of which feature flashbacks to events that take place between earlier films. With the latest installment earning some of the best reviews of the franchise, it’s possible that John Kramer will return again for another installment, but it’s anyone’s guess when that movie might be set in the overall timeline.
