Mike P. Nelson to Direct Next Saw Film for Blumhouse Atomic Monster
Mike P. Nelson will direct the next Saw film, with series creator James Wan producing through Blumhouse Atomic Monster, Deadline reported on 24 September.
The script comes from Gregory Weidman and Geoff Tock. The film is produced by Wan, Jason Blum and Leigh Whannell. Mark Burg, Oren Koules, Stacey Testro, Michael Clear and Judson Scott are executive producers, the senior credits attached to a film without day-to-day control. Alayna Glasthal and Sarah Paek will oversee the project for Blumhouse Atomic Monster.
Wan knows the property from the start. He directed and co-wrote the first Saw with Whannell. That film launched in the Midnight section of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, the late-night slot used for horror and other edgy work.
The series has since grown into a long runner. Its ten films share a single continuous mythology, with no reboots, remakes or resetting of canon, and together they have earned more than US$1 billion in ticket sales, Deadline reported.
Ten films. One story. No fresh start.
Nelson arrives with horror dates already on the calendar. He directed Beware Boiúna for Lionsgate, which had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest and opens in theatres on 2 October. His other genre credits include a new take on Silent Night, Deadly Night, a segment of V/H/S/85, Wrong Turn and the short Sweet Revenge.
That short kept him inside familiar horror lore. Sweet Revenge was a Friday the 13th vignette centred on Jason Voorhees, Variety reported last year. His Silent Night, Deadly Night revamp follows the original film from 1984, which returned to screens in a new version released by Cineverse.
His route to features ran through writing and television. He wrote The Domestics, a sci-fi thriller later released by Orion Classics. He also worked on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and directed several episodes of Studio Luma.
Weidman and Tock, the writers of the new Saw, count Below and Dune: Prophecy among their credits.
For audiences, this points to continuity rather than change. Wan, who said earlier this year he would not return to direct, stays on as a producer, The Playlist reported, while a director with steady work in low-budget horror takes the chair.
