"Saw" opened on Halloween weekend and did $18.3 million in business, a substantial figure when you consider the budget was less than $2 million. The studio believes there's an audience out there for twisted horror films and so we'll soon see "Saw 2."
In a statement issued by Lions Gate, President of Releasing tom Ortenberg said, "We were confident going into this weekend as the only new horror release that we would hit our target audience of genre fans, but this has exceeded all our expectations. With 'Saw,' James Wan and Leigh Whannell have tapped into filmgoers' most base fears and have created something that people immediately feel they need to talk about with others, and see again to catch clues they may have missed the first time."
Twisted Pictures Mark Burg, Oren Koules and Gregg Hoffman added, "We are thrilled about the strong opening weekend of 'Saw'. Lions Gate's marketing and distribution team has done a phenomenal job and we're very excited to be partnering with them again on 'Saw 2'."p] Lions Gate hopes to have "Saw 2" ready in time for a Halloween 2005 release.
Source: Lions Gate Films
