‘I want to play a game.’ This chilling catchphrase from Saw helped propel director James Wan into the Hollywood spotlight, igniting one of the most successful and enduring horror media franchises in the last twenty years. After Wan made his first feature film that was never commercially released, he and fellow film school graduate Leigh Whannell co-created a story around the idea of a jaw trap device and a sinister doll on a tricycle. When attempts to produce the film in Australia did not materialise, the duo travelled to Los Angeles and pitched the project using their 16 mm short film—on the condition that Wan would direct and Whannell would star.

Their leap of faith paid off. Produced on a modest budget of around USD 1 million, Saw debuted at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, where Lionsgate picked up its distribution rights. Its theatrical release earned more than USD 104 million worldwide at the box office and established a perennial Halloween tradition for subsequent sequels. The franchise has continued to expand through merchandise, video games, comics, theme park attractions, and memes. Its legacy is bolstered by actor Tobin Bell’s eerie reprisals as Jigsaw, the psychopathic mastermind whose brutal ‘puzzles’ lay bare the morality of our survival instinct.

James Wan (b. 1977, Malaysia) is a film director, screenwriter, and producer known for his horror media franchise Saw and film series such as Insidious and The Conjuring. Having moved to Australia at a young age, Wan graduated from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and went on to make the first Saw in 2004 with creative partner Leigh Whannell. Wan’s other notable directorial credits include Furious 7 (2015), Aquaman (2018), and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023). He founded his production company Atomic Monster in 2014, which produced Annabelle (2014) and M3GAN (2023).