Now a global hit maker! This is how James Wan's breakthrough film ``Saw'' was born!

A low-budget project born in Australia blossoms in Hollywood

Director Wang, who is of Chinese descent, was born in Malaysia and moved to Australia when he was young. He fell in love with movies and studied film production at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. There he met Leigh Whannell, who would later become his ally in the film industry. Inspired by low-budget indie films such as `` Pi '' (1998) and `` The Blair Witch Project '' (1999), they came up with the idea of ​​telling a story with just two actors and behind closed doors. This allows you to shoot on a low budget.

After that, the two characters are forced to play The Game with their lives on the line, and Jigsaw is pulling the strings... completing the basic line of the story. By the way, the setting that Jigsaw has a brain tumor was Whannell's idea. At the time, he was suffering from migraines and got the idea while visiting a hospital for an MRI scan.

“Saw” (c)Photofest / Getty Images

However, there were no film companies in their home country of Australia that would accept the projects of unknown young people. So Wang and Whannell flew to Hollywood and began pitching. It didn't feel bad, but there was no deciding factor. After being advised to make a short story first, Wang cast Whannell in the lead role and shot a short film for his presentation.

The short film, now known as Saw 0.5, tells the story of a young man who falls into Jigsaw's trap and survives the jaw crusher. This became popular in Hollywood, and the project was not only given the green light, but also received conditions that the unknown filmmaker could not have hoped for: Wang as the director and Whannell as the star. The final production cost of $1.2 million is low budget in Hollywood, but it's a lot of money for them. After all, they had originally planned to build it for $30,000.

The aftermath and director Wang's emotional evolution