How comedian Chris Rock found the funny side of horror to reboot the Aussie-born Saw franchise

A chance meeting gave Chris Rock the chance to reboot the Aussie-born Saw movies, but the horror fan reveals why he felt the pressure to deliver.

Stand-up comedy great Chris Rock is better known for cracking jokes than cracking heads, but he says fans shouldn’t be too surprised to see him front and centre in the reboot of the famously blood-soaked, body-splitting, Australia-born Saw franchise.

After all, he says, the distance between comedy and horror is not that great. “With comedy and horror, the key is the set-up and getting the audience to relax and think they are in reality and everything is OK,” he says over a Zoom call from Los Angeles. “And then … bang! A joke. Or … bang! A scare. So, we are going for the same thing, we just want different reactions.”

The Saw franchise originally came from the fevered minds of Aussies Leigh Whannell and James Wan, as writer and director respectively. After failing to get their idea – about a sadistic killer called Jigsaw who tortured and killed with elaborate traps – off the ground in their homeland, they ventured to Los Angeles to try their luck. It was well worth the trip: the first Saw film in 2004 made more than $130m from its $1.5m budget, spawning eight more sequels with increasingly ingenious (some would say preposterous) killing machines.

Chris Rock in a scene from the movie Spiral: From the Book of Saw

SAW POINTS

Rock – a two-time host of the Oscars and one of the most celebrated stand-up comedians of his generation – was a long-time fan of the franchise and admits to some trepidation about coming on board as an executive producer and lead actor in the ninth film, Spiral: From the Book of Saw, which serves as both continuation and reinvention of the Saw world.

“It was a lot of pressure because you don’t want to be the guy that kills it,” Rock says. “You don’t people to be going ‘hey, it was going great until they hired Chris Rock – and now look at it’. But I wanted to get involved. I just thought ‘hey, wouldn’t it be cool if there was some comedy in this?’. I am always looking for places to put comedy and I thought, ‘I bet I can be funny in something like this and not distract from the movie’. And I lucked up and they let me do it.”

MARRIED TO THE JOB

The opportunity for Rock to pitch his vision presented itself at a wedding, of all places, when he was seated next to Hollywood heavyweight Michael Burns, the vice-chairman of Lionsgate Films, which produces the Saw movies, as well the hit The Hunger Games and John Wick franchises. But why was he talking about gruesome horror movies at the most joyous of occasions?

“Well, I had just got divorced,” he says with a laugh. “See how it all ties in? But if you have an audience with the president of Lionsgate, you’re like ‘OK – where do I fit in?’ How about Saw? Did you ever think about a funny Saw?’. Luckily for me, you never know when people are actually listening but three weeks later I get a call ‘hey we want to meet with you about your Saw idea’. And the next thing I know we’re shooting in Toronto.”

Chris Rock and Darren Lynn Bousman on the set of Spiral: From the Book of Saw.

Though he plays a tough-as-nails cop with a chip on his shoulder in Spiral, Rock says he was always looking for the opportunity to lighten the mood between the gruesome trademark traps and dark detective story revolving around a new killer seemingly inspired by Jigsaw. In fact, Spiral director Darren Lynn Bousman, who returned to the franchise after helming Saw II, Saw III and Saw IV, says he got so much hilarious material that he could assemble a comedy cut.

“There’s some great comedy gold that got cut out of the movie because it would have pushed the film in a different direction,” Bousman says. “So, it’s a balancing act, man. You have to pepper it in the right places. But yeah, there were moments where I literally thought I had a stand-up special and I am going to kick myself for not putting it in there because, as the Chris Rock comedy fan, I am thinking that people need to hear this f..king joke – but as the director of a Saw film I can’t. So maybe for the 32-disc director’s cut that will eventually come out, I will put it in there.”

Leigh Whannell (L) & James Wan in front of famous Hollywood sign in the Los Angeles Hills as they celebrate their success of their 2004 film Saw. Picture: Karen Dodd.

ORIGIN STORY

Although Bousman took over the reins from Whannell and Wan, who tapped out after the first two films, he says the original film’s DNA is still very much with the franchise.

“I think Leigh and James tapped into something that is still resonating now. It’s a horror movie with a message. The first Saw was about appreciating your life and that we take things for granted, and that you never know what you have until it’s taken away from you. Couple that with some really gory traps and a great twist, and fans will eat it up.”

The success of the first Saw also put Whannell and Wan on the path to the upper echelons of Hollywood. Wan in particular has become a major player thanks to the success of his Conjuring universe as well as directing a Fast and Furious movie and Aquaman, which made more than $1.5bn at the box office. Whannell has taken a slightly more roundabout route, writing the Insidious movies (also directed by Wan) before cracking the big time as a director with last year’s The Invisible Man.

“I talk to Leigh a lot more,” says Bousman. “James is too busy making Aquamans. When Leigh found out about Chris Rock being cast he was actually mad. He was legitimately angry. He said ‘how the f..k is it that I create Saw but you get to direct Chris Rock?’. And I’m like, ‘well, dude, you could have directed this one, but you didn’t’.

“But it shows you just how creative and ingenious they are – they are too busy creating multibillion-dollar franchises at this point.”

Spiral: From the Book of Saw opens in cinemas on Thursday

Samuel L. Jackson was an intimidating presence on the set of Spiral: From the Book of Saw

SAM’S THE MAN

Chris Rock isn’t the only big-name actor on board for Spiral: The Book Of Saw.

In a piece of inspired casting, the filmmakers also snared Samuel L. Jackson to play the father of Rock’s character, a revered police chief who casts a very long shadow.

Rock and Jackson had known each other for a while but never worked together and while the comedian says “technically me and Sam are peers”, he says it’s in the same way that basketball great Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls teammate Steve Kerr were peers.

“I mean, it was great” Rock jokes of having Jackson as his father. “Until he insisted on having sex with my mother. That was odd. She enjoyed it – but I was uncomfortable to say the least.

IT NEVER STOPS: GUY PEARCE ON KATE WINSLET’S NEIGHBOURS OBSESSION

FATALE STAR HILARY SWANK ON SEX AND FIGHTING

JOSH DUHAMEL REVEALS WHY JUPITER’S LEGACY MAD HIM CRAZY

“Sam Jackson is on such another level man, it took me days to actually get comfortable.”

Bousman says he was thrilled and terrified in equal measure to have Jackson on his set given his aura and resume of playing tough guys in movies from Pulp Fiction to Star Wars to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Nick Fury.

“He’s in his 70s but he terrifies me,” Bousman says. “He walks on set and he’s a scary presence because I see him and I see every badass role he’s ever played.

“There’s a picture of me standing between Chris and Sam and I am smiling like the biggest idiot in the world. Because these two guys are in a Saw movie that I am directing. It’s a surreal thing because to me Sam is bigger than life. He walks on set and you’re like ‘f---, there’s Jules from Pulp Fiction’. The entire time he was there I just had a huge grin on my face.”

Originally published as How comedian Chris Rock found the funny side of horror to reboot the Aussie-born Saw franchise