Burg said pretty plainly: “If I had to do it again, I might not have killed Tobin Bell in ‘Saw III.’ That might have been a mistake.” The most recent film in the series, “Saw X,” takes place just after the events of the first “Saw,” allowing the filmmakers to resurrect Jigsaw, but such a stunt wouldn’t have been needed if they weren’t so hasty to raise the stakes at the end of “Saw III.”
Burg and Koules admitted that they cleaved to an old-world Hollywood idea when it came to making “Saw” sequels. There was a time several decades ago when talking about sequels during the production of a first film was considered presumptuous and taboo. Filmmakers wouldn’t concern themselves with sequels until the first film had already proven successful. It wasn’t until mapped-out film series like “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” came along that entire strings of films would be so openly planned in advance. Although the “Saw” movies came out on a yearly schedule — there was one “Saw” film every Halloween for seven straight years — Koules and Burg didn’t want to set anything up for the next round.
This includes any plans for a “Saw XI.” When asked about the future of the series — prequels, sequels, or interquels — Burg said:
“We’re superstitious, so we’ve never talked about the following ‘Saw’ until the previous movie opens. So if this movie works on October 2, we’ll sit down. […] We left it open-ended, and I want to see what happens next.”
“Saw X” was made on a budget of only $13 million, and has, as of this writing, earned over $80 million worldwide. It seems that a “Saw XI” is very much in our future.