Spiral: From the Book of Saw is a 2021 horror film written and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, Josh Stolberg, and Peter Goldfinger. The ninth entry in the Saw film franchise. Chris Rock, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols, and Samuel L. Jackson feature in this thriller about police attempts to arrest a copycat Jigsaw murderer. Executive producers include the series' original creators, James Wan and Leigh Whannell, as well as Rock and series veteran Kevin Greutert.Chris Rock wanted to venture out into horror following Jigsaw's 2017 release. The Spierig Brothers, who directed Jigsaw, considered returning but didn't. Rock is refining a Stolberg and Goldfinger script. Filming continued in Toronto during July and August with the remainder of the cast.
Lionsgate pushed the cinema release of Spiral: From the Book of Saw back to May 14, 2021 in the United States because to the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the film had been slated to be released in May 2020. Critics were split on whether or not the film was successful in reimagining the series entirely; although they complimented the franchise's new direction, they were divided on whether or not the film was successful in reimagining the franchise.
What exactly is the storyline of Spiral?
Detective Marv Bozwick, who is not on duty, chases a thief down a sewer drain pipe during a Fourth of July parade. Bozwick is attacked from behind by a person wearing a pig mask. When he wakes up, he is hanging by his tongue in an active subway tunnel. A recorded message tells him he can either cut out his tongue and live or wait until the next train comes, which will kill him. Bozwick is killed by the train because he can't get out of the trap in time. The next day, Captain Angie Garza of the police department pairs Detective Zeke Banks with William Schenk, an idealistic rookie. Banks and Schenk look into Bozwick's death, and Banks realizes that the way he died is similar to how the now-dead Jigsaw Killer did things.
Meanwhile, a murder investigator called Fitch is kidnapped and put in a trap where he must pull his fingers off to prevent electrocution in a filling water basin; he too fails to escape and dies after ignoring a backup call from Banks some years previously. Because of his relationship with Fitch, several police assume Banks is to blame. The station is then visited by a package carrying a pig puppet and a portion of Schenk's tattooed flesh. A little vial inside the box leads the cops to a butcher shop that was originally a hobby business frequented by Banks and his father, retired chief Marcus Banks. When the squad arrives, they find a recording recorder and a skinned body identified as Schenk. Marcus decides to seek out the murderer himself and heads to a warehouse, where he is kidnapped. Garza is abducted and put in a trap in the precinct's cold storage, where she must slice her spinal chord with a blade to stop hot wax from a conduit from spilling down her face. She fails to do so, and when Banks finds her corpse, she dies from her injuries caused by the boiling hot wax.
Banks gets apprehended while following a lead and awakens in the warehouse, shackled to a pipe with a hacksaw nearby. He contemplates chopping off his arm, but instead uses a bobby pin to get away. Peter Dunleavy, his former colleague who was sacked and imprisoned after Banks disclosed a murder he committed, is later discovered shackled in place. A massive glass-crushing machine stands in front of him, modified to throw shrapnel at him quickly. Banks may either liberate him or leave him to die, according to a recording recorder. Despite Banks' best efforts, he is unable to get the key in time to rescue Dunleavy. Banks then discovers Schenk in another chamber, who had been the copycat all along, having faked his own death by using the skinned body of the robber who lured Bozwick into the tunnels. He reveals that his last name is Emmerson, and that he is the son of Charlie Emmerson, who was shot and murdered by Dunleavy after agreeing to testify against a corrupt officer. Marcus, he also admits, purposely sheltered corrupt police throughout his term as chief in order to scrub the streets of crime more quickly under Article 8.
Emmerson believes Banks may be an ally, so he gives him a last test, which shows Marcus restrained in the air and slowly being drained of blood. Emmerson contacts 9-1-1 and pretends to be a citizen being chased by a gunman, prompting a SWAT unit to be sent to his area. He delivers Banks a handgun and one cartridge, instructing him to either fire a target that would rescue Marcus while allowing Emmerson to go, or to murder Emmerson and let Marcus bleed to death. To rescue his father, Banks fires at the target, loosening his shackles and lowers him to the ground, before fighting Emmerson. The SWAT squad comes shortly after and accidentally sets off a tripwire, yanking Marcus upward again. Marcus' arm gets fitted with a gun, causing the SWAT squad to mistake him for the shooter and murder him. As Emmerson flees, Banks shouts in sorrow.
Who played the leading roles in Spiral: From the Book of Saw?
Chris Rock was Zeke Banks. Detective William Schenk/Emerson was played by Max Minghella. Leonidas Castrounis was William. Samuel L. Jackson played Banks. Captain Angie Garza was played by Marisol Nichols. Detective Marv Bozwick was played by Daniel Petronijevic. The role of Detective Fitch was played by Richard Zeppieri. Patrick McManus gave the performance of Peter Dunleavy in the play. Actress Ali Johnson played the role of Officer Jeannie Lewis.
Kara Bozwick (Zoie Palmer) Sergeant Morgey Silva was played by Dylan Roberts. Detective Drury was acted by K. C. Collins.
Edie Inksetter was Deborah Kraus.
Nazneen Contractor played Chada.
Detective Tim O'Brien was played by Thomas Mitchell.
Benny Wrights was played by Chad Camilleri. Speez was played by Christopher Ramsay. Frank Licari was Charlie Emerson. Genelle Williams played the role of Lisa Banks in the show.
Gretzky played Officer Jones.
This is the only Saw film in which the character of John Kramer / Jigsaw isn't seen onscreen in any way other than through images, since Tobin Bell, who portrayed the role in the previous films, did not return. As Bousman noted, the film's murderer is a Jigsaw copycat, not the real Jigsaw, he stated his decision to not replace Bell in the famous role. When Billy the Puppet's origins were discussed, Bell indicated an interest in returning as Jigsaw.
Spiral (2021) has Chris Rock as a special guest star.
Chris Rock pitched Lionsgate Spiral to revamp the Saw franchise and his career.According to Chris Rock, the idea for the film Spiral came about after he had a chance encounter with the vice chairman of Lionsgate, Michael Burns, at the wedding of a friend in Brazil. Rock felt that doing something in the horror genre would be a new direction for him to take in his career, even though he planned to include some comedic elements in the film. Rock went to Lionsgate with his suggestions for expanding the series, and the company showed a lot of interest in the notion. Rock's approach, according to Joe Drake, CEO of Lionsgate, was fully respectful to the tradition of the material while also reinvigorating the brand with his humor, artistic vision, and enthusiasm for this great horror property. Joe Drake made this statement. By January 2018, industry reports suggested that Lionsgate had began conversations of a ninth Saw film, for which the Spierig Brothers would not be returning. Screen Rant had an interview with the film's makers, and they affirmed that their movie paved the way for future sequels. As of April 2018, Twisted Pictures and the creators of Jigsaw, Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger, were working on the script for a sequel.
After Jigsaw came out, Stolberg and Goldfinger were talking to series veterans Mark Burg and Oren Koules about making a new Saw movie about only John Kramer/Jigsaw and not any of his other apprentices. Burg and Koules called Stolberg and Goldfinger to tell them about Rock's ideas for a new movie, and Rock called them soon after to talk about his idea. Before that, other writers had pitched Lionsgate their ideas for the next Saw movie, but none of them had worked. Stolberg and Goldfinger, on the other hand, had come up with eight different versions of the movie before Rock came along and combined his idea with theirs. Burg and Koules asked the two to come up with a pitch for Rock. Stolberg and Goldfinger did this, and both Lionsgate and Rock liked their pitch. This led to them writing their first draft, which was approved a week after it was turned in. Rock helped Stolberg and Goldfinger write the story and rewrote it when they needed to.
Rock's character was originally supposed to be linked to Danny Glover's David Tapp from the previous film. Stolberg and Goldfinger decided against going this route since it failed the smell test. Bousman said in May 2021 that talks had taken place regarding bringing Costas Mandylor back as Mark Hoffman in a future film. Bousman and the crew debated whether or not Tobin Bell should reprise his role as Jigsaw until the last day of production, but they thought that having Bell back would make the film seem like a continuation of the Saw series rather than a standalone picture as it was intended. Because Jigsaw was killed off in the third picture, Bousman believed that previous films had done Jigsaw a disservice by utilizing flashbacks to bring him into the tale, and he didn't want to make the same error in Spiral (2021) or disrespect Bell's legendary portrayal. Bousman contemplated including Bell in Spiral by having him perform a Johnny Cash song during the concluding scene, but decided against it because it was too gimmicky.
How come Tobin Bell wasn't in Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)?
Tobin Bell did not reprise his normal role as Jigsaw in Spiral, making it the first Saw film in which Bell did not appear.
In an interview with Bloody Disgusting, Stolberg stated that Jigsaw was never included in any draft of the screenplay for Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021), as the inclusion of Jigsaw would have altered the story's foundation; they did not intend to diminish the character, but rather wanted to move the franchise in a different direction. Stolberg also felt that due to the franchise's timeline, any possible connection between John Kramer and William Schenk / The Spiral (2021) Killer should have occurred when the latter was still a child, taking into account his portrayer's age; Stolberg and Goldfinger proposed at one point to have an after-credits sequence in which Kramer met a young Schenk after the murder of the latter's father and befriended him, possibly giving him the puppet he later uses as the
This new Jigsaw copycat is different from the original in appearance, so it was decided to use a new puppet named Mr. Snuggles to replace Billy the Puppet. Bousman felt that if the original Jigsaw was changed, then a different puppet should also be used to ensure that the killer could not compare the two. Reusing the distinctive sound of Mr. Snuggles' voice for Mr. Snuggles was feared to raise doubts about the killers' relationship; an early draft of Jigsaw featured his voice, only to reveal a digitally altered version of his voice; and the story originally had all the speeches as actually being past recordings of Jigsaw's voice using words in a different order to show that the Spiral Killer had digitally rearranged the words. It was difficult for the producers to come up with a new voice for the murderer in lieu of Bell. Bousman auditioned a slew of female, kid, and male voices before deciding on the computer-simulated one. Only two days before the final sound mix was completed, the final voice was picked for inclusion in the film.
A look at Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)'s backstage
The film was officially in pre-production on May 16, 2019. Former series director Darren Lynn Bousman is back to direct the movie, and Burg and Koules are producing it along with him. In addition to writing the story treatment, Rock was also the show's executive producer.
James Wan, Leigh Whannell, and Daniel Heffner, the original creators of Saw, have joined Rock as executive producers. As scriptwriters, Stolberg and Goldfinger were confirmed.
Rock said that he has liked the Saw movies since the first one came out in 2004. He was excited about the chance to take this to a new, very dark, and strange place.
Bousman, who refused to make another Saw film after Saw IV, turned down the opportunity to helm a Broadway production in New York City after Rock insisted on him directing the picture.
Burg and Koules felt Rock's portrayal of Saw was like Eddie Murphy's in 48 Hrs., giving the series a new viewpoint. Bousman said that compared to previous entries, Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) had less violence and gore. He said that gore and violence were the gimmick when he began working on the Saw films, but that both components now support the plot, which focuses more on character, suspense, and terror.
Stolberg also indicated that the ninth film would be part of the same canon as the previous eight and will neither be a reboot or a straight sequel to Jigsaw.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw cast
Zeke Banks, a police officer, was played by Rock. Rock, Stolberg, and Goldfinger came up with the idea for the character during conversations they had before writing the screenplay. Rock wondered what he would do if he were the original Saw main character, Dr. Lawrence Gordon, and had to cut off his own foot. They thought it would be interesting if Rock played a cop who didn't get along with the other cops.
Samuel L. Jackson decided to portray Chief Marcus Banks because he wanted to experience something new, such as the climax sequence in which his character is hung up like a marionette. Despite being a Saw fan, Marisol Nichols preferred to view David Fincher's Seven instead of the other films in preparation for the part. Patrick McManus auditioned for the part of Detective Marv Bozwick, but was called back to portray Peter Dunleavy, while Dan Petronijevic was cast as Bozwick, in an effort to pursue an acting career on film and television after years of playing on stage.
Max Minghella, a devotee of horror and buddy-cop films, took up the part of William Schenk / The Spiral (2021) Killer because he desired to appear in a movie with straightforward story-telling like the buddy police of his childhood like 48 Hrs.
Spiral's filming was...
Principal filming for The Organ Donor started on July 8, 2019, in Toronto, Ontario, with Jordan Oram acting as cinematographer. The film will feature Rock, Jackson, Minghella, and Nichols. According to Lionsgate CEO Joe Drake, Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Rock, as well as Max Minghella and Marisol Nichols, will make this picture wholly unique in the Saw canon, and they can't wait to unleash this surprising and scary new narrative on fans of the series. This was Saw at its most extreme. On site, Rock contributed rewrites and entirely rewrote his character's introductory sequence. According to Bousman, a sequence with a trap had to be deleted from the movie because it was too gruesome.
It was declared over on August 28, 2019. Dev Singh finished the editing in post-production.
How did Spiral: From the Book of Saw market itself?
The film's working title was The Organ Donor until January 22, 2020, when the name Spiral: From the Book of Saw and the Canadian distributor Mongrel Media were revealed to the press. The publication of the first teaser poster and trailer on February 5, 2020, established Spiral as the film's title.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw in theaters and streaming
Spiral: From the Book of Saw was initially set for release on October 23, 2020. July 2019 pushed it to May 15, 2020. Due to COVID-19, the film's release was postponed until May 21, 2021, replacing John Wick: Chapter 4. It was postponed to May 14, 2021 when cinemas reopened.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) will premiere exclusively on Starz in the United States on October 8, 2021, according to Lionsgate's announcement on May 25, 2021. Via June 1, 2021, Spiral was launched in Canada on PVOD.
What kind of score was assigned to Spiral (2021)?
The Motion Picture Association gave the picture an NC-17 classification 11 times before ultimately deleting enough parts to achieve a R rating, according to Darren Lynn Bousman.
How much did Spiral: From the Book of Saw make at the movie theaters?
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) has earned $40.6 million worldwide as of March 3, 2022, including $23.2 million in the US and Canada and $17.3 million elsewhere.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) was released in North America with Those Who Wish Me Dead, Profile, and Finding You, with an opening weekend take of $10–15 million expected from 2,811 theaters. A drop from the original forecast of $9 million to $3.7 million was achieved on the first day of release (including $750,000 from Thursday night previews). It opened with $8.8 million, topping the box office for the sixth time in the series, although it was the franchise's lowest opening weekend. Males accounted for 56 percent of the audience and 75 percent of the audience was under 35 years old, with a favorable reaction more prevalent on the East Coast. Despite a 48 percent decline to $4.6 million during the next weekend, it stayed at the top of the charts.
What did the film's reviewers have to say about it?
Despite the positive reviews Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) received from film reviewers, many believed it failed to give Saw the huge push it needed to reclaim its place as one of cinema's most popular franchises.
On the website that aggregates reviews, Rotten Tomatoes, there are 221 reviews total, and 37 percent of those reviews are positive, giving the movie an average rating of 5.1 out of 10. The general opinion among the site's reviewers was that Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) hints to an exciting new path for the Saw series, even if the bloody whole is rather less than the sum of its parts.
Critics gave the film a score of 40 out of 100 on Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, meaning that it received mediocre or average reviews.
CinemaScore rated the picture a B- on a scale of A+ to F, while PostTrak reported that 63 percent of audience members gave it a good rating, with 43 percent indicating they would certainly recommend it.
According to one film reviewer, the picture takes an unexpected twist or two, but given that it's a thriller about police immorality, the film handles that subject in a strangely offtopic, even garishly generic manner.Another film reviewer said the writing maintained the grizzled-cop-movie tone and drew some interesting characters, but the plot was repetitive, the mystery was annoyingly foreseeable, and the inventive deaths were less imaginative than before. Spiral compromised entertainment value for respectability and failed to accomplish either.
Many movie critics said that Spiral was a legitimately scary detective thriller, but that it moved at an uneven pace. They also said that the screenplay didn't show how tense the relationship between the main characters' father and son could be.
Some movie critics liked the acting and the simple but interesting plot of Spiral (2021). However, they said that the voice of the mysterious killer sounded like Kermit the Frog, and they said that this movie's real audience wouldn't be able to handle the screams and blood. They are the main attraction.
A reviewer awarded the film one out of five stars and panned the climax, noting that it was hurried, half-assed, badly written, and, worst of all, becoming progressively boring. Game over, he said at the conclusion of his evaluation.
In his review of the picture, which received one and a half stars, a different film reviewer called it "downright unreadable" since it lacked tension, a narrative, and movement in the storyline. He criticized the film's tone as well as the direction that it was given by Darren Lynn Bousman.
A separate reviewer complimented the opening sequence but called the idea dishonest and fear mongering. Like Jigsaw's easy puzzles, this film isn't as smart as it believes.
One film reviewer awarded the picture a 3 out of 10 rating, claiming that Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) is sequel that aspires to woo Saw enthusiasts and mainstream viewers equally, Spiral: From the Book of Saw: From the Book of Saw is likely to offend them both. It's a false replica of the series, failing to match its most basic aesthetic and narrative standards. It's also a terrible picture in general, which attempts to portray a socially important narrative that it can't seem to grasp. He also attacked the picture for its lack of connection to the Saw franchise, noting that Spiral is barely a Saw film, delivering only momentarily on the visceral pleasure of mutilation, and on none of the series' other premises. It's also the most artless, tactless form of what it plays like instead: a rejected pilot episode for a monotonous police procedural.
Reviewer Decker Shado weighed in on the Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) debate. From the Book of Saw, and the mind of Chris Rock it's Spiral: From the Book of Saw, the latest movie in the Saw franchise having come out late in 2021. After we got an entire Summer of Saw you should probably know the drill by now, a killer is on the loose who doesn't directly do in his prey, but rather tests them with mechanical contraptions as ingenious as they are disturbing. Or at least, that's the concept. A lot of these traps leave quite a bit to be desired... and the methodology is also a bit off, as is the goal. It's explained much better in his video.
Another film reviewer felt the notion isn't wasted. The franchise doesn't require revamping. After a promising start, Spiral becomes a decent Saw movie with larger names—one whose jaundiced lighting and procedural narrative remind David Fincher's Se7en. Whether the objective was to determine if a new perspective on a long-running series could withstand sequels, it's over.
A film reviewer gave the film a bad review, noting that Spiral fumbles through its fundamental enigma without elegance or flair, or even much thinking. Even the death traps are oddly unimaginative. He admitted the picture had promise, noting that the most frustrating thing about Spiral: From the Book of Saw is that there is a better, wiser movie lying behind all the foolishness here. There are too many rapid cuts and speed ramping sequences. The horrible speech that's blasted at full volume is unpleasant. Spiral (2021) is ultimately a picture about corrupt, and even deadly officers suddenly facing a reckoning, and that type of material has the potential to be both subversive, for a Hollywood movie, and current but remarked that Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) is almost irritating in how little it appears to care about any of this. It merely wants to bleed a lot of blood, which it does.
Is Spiral (2021) going to have a sequel?
In April 2021, a sequel film, dubbed Saw X, was announced to be in production with Twisted Pictures. However, Bousman noted that it was a premature statement that astonished him and the film's producers. He added that simply because they produced Spiral: From the Book of Saw, it doesn't mean that the Saw series ceases to exist. Just because Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) is here, it doesn't mean there won't be a Saw IX. This is not the ninth film in the Saw series. There easily may be a Saw IX that succeeds Jigsaw. I suppose they're waiting to see how Spiral (2021) goes and how viewers react to decide what happens next. Josh Stolberg said the script was done in December of that same year.
Will Spiral be the subject of a television series?
During an interview with Deadline Hollywood in April of 2021, Lionsgate Television chairman Kevin Beggs revealed that the company has begun discussions with Mark Burg and Oren Koules' Twisted Television productions to develop a television series based on Spiral.