Jigsaw is an underwhelming #1, Amityville didn’t score a grand

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

After a seven year break, the SAW franchise has returned with this past weekend's release of JIGSAW, the eighth installment in the series. Judging by the box office haul, it doesn't seem like the general audience was clamoring for its return. While JIGSAW did open with a respectable number north of $16 million, enough to earn the #1 spot for the weekend, that number is also the second lowest opening for any SAW movie, and almost the lowest when you adjust for inflation.

Four of the previous seven SAW films earned more than $30 million over their opening weekends. The previous lowest opening was SAW VI's $14 million… but those are 2009 dollars. Today, SAW VI's $14,118,444 would be somewhere in the range of $16,242,886 (according to an online inflation calculator), so it's just a matter of thousands that keeps JIGSAW's $16,250,000 from being the series low.

Regardless, JIGSAW was made for a budget of around $10 million, so it's doing fine. I just don't think there's going to be a fresh outbreak of SAW fever.

JIGSAW certainly did much better than the latest addition to the AMITYVILLE saga, AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING. After sitting on a shelf for years, the film finally escaped into a handful of theatres – 10, to be exact – this past weekend, and ended up earning a total of $742. 

That movie was also released for free through Google Play earlier this month. I'm just glad it's out in the world now, so we can close the book on that disastrous ordeal.