9 Genuinely Subtle Ways Movies Planned For The Sequel In Advance

8. Detective Hoffman Covers His Tracks - Saw III

The Saw franchise is famous - or infamous? - for its customary absurd plot twists, and the third Saw film actually slyly hinted at a game-changing twist which wouldn't be revealed until Saw IV.

Following an opening trap sequence in which a man is blown to pieces by a bomb, Detective Kerry (Dina Meyer) is surveying the crime scene with Lieutenant Rigg (Lyriq Bent) and new forensic officer Hoffman (Costas Mandylor).

If you pay close attention, you'll see Hoffman take a piece of incriminating evidence from the scene and tuck it inside his jacket, and when Kerry discusses the possibility of Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) having an accomplice, a shot lingers on Hoffman looking rather unhappy about that.

Fans didn't read much into it at the time, but Saw IV's climactic twist, of course, is that Hoffman was Jigsaw's ultimate apprentice all along, and he then serves as the series' primary antagonist for the next three movies.

Given that he has a whole two lines in Saw III and mere moments of screen time, however, nobody would've ever guessed he was more than a mere seat-filler.