With the new Spiral trailer, viewers are seeing Chris Rock make his foray into psychological horror movies for the first time in his career. A video clip arrived on Wednesday, February 5, which is a Saw reboot teaser and also features Samuel L. Jackson.
Rock isn’t just a star in the movie but also helped bring it to life for the big screen in 2020. Here are more details on the upcoming film Spiral: From the Book of Saw.
First Spiral trailer features Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson
In the new movie Spiral, Chris Rock takes on the role of Detective Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks. Max Minghella plays Zeke’s partner Detective William Schenk while Samuel L. Jackson is veteran police officer Marcus Banks. Marisol Nichols stars as Captain Angie Garza.
As Marcus Banks is investigating recent murders based on the city’s past, Zeke and his partner Schenk are also tasked with investigating the brutal crimes.
As seen in the trailer, Rock’s character determines that whoever is behind the heinous acts seems to be going after police officers. Based on the YouTube trailer info, Zeke finds himself at the center of the killer’s game.
Saw fans will even notice a callback to the first movie in the horror series with Rock’s character handcuffed to a pipe in a dark space. So it seems this movie will involve some of the recognizable elements of the original film.
Check out the new Spiral teaser trailer below for the 2020 movie starring Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson.
How does Spiral fit into the Saw series?
The film is a new story based on the Saw series that Chris Rock brought to Lionsgate himself. That all reportedly came about because he met the head of the studio at a friend’s wedding.
After pitching the idea to the studio about extending the Saw franchise, they felt Rock’s concept was worth developing.
Last May, Deadline’s report included comments from Rock about how he’s been a fan of the franchise since 2004. Now he’ll have his own spin on the movies, which some fans felt had worn their welcome after the first three or four installments.
However, with horror franchises, they tend to have multiple installments and then reboots or remakes. That was the case with the Halloween franchise, which saw a major comeback with comedic actor Danny McBride writing and executive producing a reboot sequel to the original film.
Longtime Saw series producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules were fully on board for Chris Rock’s new spin on things with their franchise.
“Chris wants to put his own spin on the Saw franchise in the way Eddie Murphy put a completely fresh perspective on buddy-cop films with 48 Hours,” Burg and Koules said, per Deadline. “This new Saw is going to be an event film in the making for horror fans. It will have all of the twists and turns and hardcore layers that our fans expect directed by one of the masters of the craft, Darren Lynn Bousman. We can’t wait to get started.”
The movie is a collaboration involving Rock, Twisted Pictures, and Lionsgate.
It will be the ninth film in the Saw series and rather than having a boring title like Saw 9 or Jigsaw Returns, it is called Spiral: From the Book of Saw. Darren Lynn Bousman directs the movie which was written by Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw spins into theaters on May 15, 2020.