10 Movies That Started As Something Else Entirely
5. Saw II Started As A Saw Rip-Off
While the exploits of Jigsaw and the brutal trap murders in the Saw franchise may have gotten a little silly towards the end, it certainly started out with a bang. And while Saw II was given the go-ahead immediately after the rip-roaring success of the first film, the franchise didn't have a particular direction for a follow-up. This was because James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the two behind the original thriller, were busy making Dead Silence for Universal and didn't quite expect Saw to be the pop culture hit it was.
Meanwhile, a German company were getting ready to make The Desperate - a horror film which featured grizzly traps and murders and on the surface sounded extremely Saw-like, an issue that had seen writer Darren Lynn Bousman's script being rejected by every studio he pitched it to for being too similar to Saw.
Except when it was pitched to the studio that made Saw... which actually used that to its advantage.
Very quickly, Bousman was hired to direct his screenplay for The Desperate as Saw II and along with the help of some polishing from original Saw scribes Leigh Whannell and James Wan so that it would fit with their first film, Saw II became a reality. Its success would prove that sequels to the original were possible and not only that, would be extremely lucrative.