A ‘Saw’ Reboot Is Coming from the Twisted Mind of [Checks Notes] Chris Rock?
Credit to Author: Drew Schwartz| Date: Thu, 16 May 2019 16:29:03 +0000
It takes a special kind of dark, twisted mind to make a movie like Saw, a mind capable of dreaming up impossibly gruesome death traps that leave helpless, everyday people forced to dig into each other’s stomachs, hack off their own legs, and make life-threatening blood sacrifices to appease some weird, sociopathic puppet man. Unsated by the seven increasingly terrible Saw movies that have already come out, we, the moviegoing public, demand yet another installation in the franchise—but who is up to the challenge? What tortured soul has a bleak enough vision to bring to life the evil, gruesome misdeeds of Jigsaw and his swirly-cheeked ward, Billy the Puppet?
The answer, my friends, is clear: comedic actor Chris Rock.
This is, somehow, a thing that is legitimately happening: As Variety reports, the same guy you loved in Pootie Tang and Madagascar is going to reboot Saw. Apparently, Rock has been super into Saw since the first movie came out in 2004, and he came to Lionsgate keen on reviving it, armed with his very own storyline. For a moment, put aside your many questions—most notably, “what?” and “why?”—and just read this quote from Lionsgate Motion Picture Group chairman Joe Drake, which, bafflingly, was not written by someone at Clickhole.
“When Chris Rock came to us and described in chilling detail his fantastic vision that reimagines and spins off the world of the notorious Jigsaw Killer, we were all-in,” Drake said in a statement. “This upcoming film will still be as mind bending and intense as all the previous Saw films. Chris conceived this idea and it will be completely reverential to the legacy of the material while reinvigorating the brand with his wit, creative vision, and passion for this classic horror franchise.”
In his own statement, Rock said he was “excited” to take the film “to a really intense and twisted new place.” The script is based on Rock’s original storyline, and he’ll be executive producing it alongside the series’ original creators, James Wan and Leigh Whannell.
Is the new Saw going to be… good? Funny? Unbearable? We can’t say—there still aren’t any details on the plotline or the cast. We can, however, speculate wildly about what the thing might look like. Maybe Rock will draw on his longstanding, intimate personal relationships with the cast of Grown Ups and throw Adam Sandler, Kevin James, David Spade, and Rob Schneider in a room together with a reverse bear trap and a bunch of knives, forcing them hack each to pieces—or die! Then again, maybe he’ll go more Everybody Hates Chris with this thing, and do a voiceover about Jigsaw’s kooky upbringing on the streets of Bed-Stuy, complete with flashbacks to the days before John Kramer systematically tortured people for fun all the time.
Anything could happen! We’ll find out for sure just how gory, masochistic, and/or gut-bustingly wacky Rock’s Saw reboot will be when the thing hits theaters on October 23, 2020.
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This article originally appeared on VICE US.