20 Mind-Blowing Facts About The Saw Franchise
13. Saw II Started Off As A Separate Film
While Saw was getting a lot of buzz at festivals, director Darren Lynn Bousman was pitching his script for The Desperate to potential investors. When Saw producer Gregg Hoffman read it, he thought it would be a great film to make in the same vein as Saw.
Even though there was originally no desire to make a sequel to Saw, Hoffman changed his mind when the film became a global phenomenon. Because it would take months to complete a script, Hoffman taught it was sensible to turn The Desperate into Saw II.
When Bousman was asked if his work could be revised for the franchise, he was furious, worried the finished product would have no resemblance to his script. But after he saw the success of Saw and noticed the similarities between the plot and his own story, he felt that amalgamating The Desperate into the Saw universe would work. Even though Leigh Whannell polished the script for four weeks, a lot of main points remained unchanged, including the characters, the traps, and the death scenes. The refined script turned out so well, you wouldn't know it wasn't intended to be a part of the Saw franchise.