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Saw, the terrifying new film produced by Twisted Pictures and released by Lions Gate Films, the motion picture acquisition, production and distribution arm of Lions Gate Entertainment, cut a wide swath into the nationwide box-office over the lucrative Halloween weekend, grossing $18.3 million on 2315 screens, taking the #3 position. Scaring off the competition by coming in #1 on Halloween day, the films three day gross exceeded industry expectations. On the heels of positive response to the bloody tale of a twisted psychopath's murderous cat and mouse games, plans for the sequel releasing Halloween 2005 was jointly announced by Peter Block, Lions Gate Films President of Acquisitions, Television and Co-Productions and Twisted Pictures Mark Burg, Oren Koules and Gregg Hoffman.
"We were confident going into this weekend as the only new horror release that we would hit our target audience of genre fans, but this has exceeded all our expectations," said Tom Ortenberg, President of Lions Gate Films Releasing. "With 'Saw,' James Wan and Leigh Whannell have tapped into filmgoers' most base fears and have created something that people immediately feel they need to talk about with others, and see again to catch clues they may have missed the first time," he added.
"We are thrilled about the strong opening weekend of 'Saw.' Lions Gate's marketing and distribution team has done a phenomenal job and we're very excited to be partnering with them again on Saw 2," say producers Burg, Koules and Hoffman.
Directed by 27-year-old James Wan and written by 27-year-old co-star Leigh Whannell, Saw follows a madman who, obsessed with teaching his victims the value of life, abducts morally wayward people and forces them to play horrific games for their own survival. Faced with impossible choices, each victim must struggle to win back his/her life, or else die trying. The film stars Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Dina Meyer, Ken Leung and Leigh Whannell.
