Saw movie franchise to get Guinness world record

Saw's James Wan, right, and Leigh Whannell.

From TheWest

The Saw horror movie franchise is getting a place in the Guiness World Records as the "Most Successful Horror Movie Series," one of the film's producers, Mark Burg, said on Thursday.

"I'm still in shock," Burg told Reuters. "The fact that we beat out (such horror franchises as) 'Friday the 13th,' 'Nightmare on Elm Street,' 'Halloween' and 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' is a testament to our cast, crew and our partners at Lionsgate."

The franchise consists of six movies, each one having come out consecutively every Halloween since 2004. The seventh, and final, instalment is due out October 29th and will be featured in 3D.

Collectively, the "Saw" films have made over $73O million (�478 million) at the worldwide box-office and sold more than thirty million DVDs, according to distributors Lionsgate.

The films centre around a killer named Jigsaw who puts his victims through psychological torture before killing them.

Burg said it was during the production of "Saw 2," that the producers decided to "etch out" one long story spanning seven films. Therefore, after the seventh movie, called "Saw 3D", there will be no other movies, including spin-offs or prequels.

"We are done; this is it," he said. "We don't want to be that boxer who fought one too many fights."

Burg said the seventh chapter was always "anticipated" by fans as the final one.

Apparently Saw is the first horror franchise to have a roller coaster based on it.

When they say this will be the last film, they better mean it and not do a John Farnham.  I do recall James and Leigh saying the third film was to be the last...

James Wan was the director and writer for Saw I, producer for Saw II, producer and writer for Saw III, and producer for Saw IV to VI and Saw 3D (seems alll movies are coming out as 3d these days?).  He is currently working on thriller Insidious (starring Rose Byrne) and Castlevania.

It's quite interesting to read about their original short film called Saw, created by two friends on a low budget, and how it has progressed to become a massive franchise including video games.