The horror genre has been in an exciting renaissance over the past few years, thanks to plenty of visionary filmmakers whose movies came with critical and box office success. But the genre is also built on long-running franchises, with properties like Halloween and Saw returning to theaters. The latter franchise will continue with Chris Rock's Spiral, although its unclear if franchise star Tobin Bell will return as John Kramer/Jigsaw. But the actor does have hopes for his character's future.
Tobin Bell has had a long career as an actor, but he's perhaps best known for playing the villainous Jigsaw in the Saw franchise. Bell has appeared in some capacity in every single installment thus far, including 2017's Jigsaw. The 77 year-old actor recently shared his hopes for Jigsaw's future, including a possible recasting. As he put it,
John Kramer is a King Lear-like character. He's huge, his world is very large. If the writing is amazing, he's a character that any actor would be thrilled to have an opportunity to occupy.
What a class act. Tobin Bell understands what a complicated and fascinating his Saw character is, and can see a future for Jigsaw to be played by another actor sometime in the future. Although if that happened, said performer would have some ver big shoes to fill; Bell is a bonafide horror legend at this point.
Tobin Bell comments to Comic Book about Saw's future shows how long the gory property could go in the future. James Wan's original Saw movie arrived back in 2004, and Jigsaw's villainous plans haven't been far from theaters in the years since. The character of John Kramer only continued to expanded upon, which is particularly notable considering how long the character has been dead for.
Jigsaw was actually killed back in Saw III. The fourth movie starts with an autopsy of his dead body, with the franchise shifting focus over to his various apprentices. But that didn't stop Tobin Bell from appearing in every single movie that followed, usually through flashbacks that revealed the backstory with each protegee.
It's hard to imagine anyone besides Tobin Bill playing Jigsaw, but horror franchises have seen this type of recasting happen. Plenty of actors have played masked villains like Michael Myers, Robert Englund was recast for 2009's Friday the 13th, and Jodie Foster was recast when Silence of the Lambs became a franchise.
We'll just have to wait and see if/how Jigsaw pops up in Spiral. The movie is currently set to arrive in theaters on May 21st, 2021. In the meantime, check out our 2020 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
