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Saw had a reported production budget of $1.2 million. Wan revealed that only after the franchise was over did he find out that the film was shot on a budget closer to $700,000. It was only when Lionsgate picked it up that the budget spilled over $1 million, as they tweaked it to the film it is today.

With the film in Lionsgate’s hands, they decided to trial it out in the UK first, opening on October 1st 2004. Playing on the “intense” vibe the film had generated, they even went with the tagline “Dare you see Saw?” as a way of inviting potential audiences to test their nerves. It worked, for it opened at #2 with a decent gross of £1.23 million. Converted to dollars, it had already managed to make its production budget back. The second week saw only a miniscule drop, as it retained the same position with a take of £1.03 million. It didn’t take long for Saw to become a sensation and over the coming weeks when working at the multiplex, I began to witness the effect of strong word-of-mouth, as the film’s late night screening began to sell out every single night! To cope with the demand, the decision was made to move the film from a small 100-seat screen into a slightly bigger 156-seat screen.

The film opened in the US a few weeks later on October 29th and was already in profit, having earned over £6 million in the UK. It reached #3 at the US box office with an opening weekend take of $18.2 million. It had managed to accumulate $55.1 million in the US alone. Add in the $47.9 million earned overseas and Saw had grossed $103 million worldwide. Given the huge return on investment, the next obvious step was to fast track a sequel.

Saw spawned sequels that were released yearly, reaching its conclusion with the seventh instalment, Saw 3D, which was released in October 2010. While Whannell co-wrote the second and third films, Wan didn’t direct any of the sequels. They both remained as executive producers on each film in the franchise. I found Saw II to be equally impressive, but the following sequels failed by their mere existence. It turned into a violent soap opera as they tried to give additional characters back stories while the focus shifted towards more elaborate traps with more elaborate death scenes. It became less about redemption, one of the unique factors about the original film. Instead it was gore for gore’s sake. Wan himself admitted that with so many sequels, “the storyline has gone completely to the extreme and has become convoluted.” Two spin-off video games were also released.

Other films tried to capitalise on its success, such as Hostel, Captivity and The Collector, playing with the idea of inventive death scenes, and traps. They also tried to out-saw Saw with their car chases, sex scenes and explosions. It wasn’t long before the phrase torture porn was coined. Whannell himself was happy to have Saw mentioned in an episode of The Sopranos.

As a remarkable little film exceeding everyone’s expectations, that it wasn’t filtered through the studio system meant that Saw was as close to Wan and Whannell’s vision as the budget would allow. How refreshing it was to see something original and genuinely clever. It’s just a shame that its reputation has been tarnished by a plethora of sub-standard sequels and imitators; yet this in itself merely highlights Saw as one of the most influential films of the last decade.

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