Yesterday we reported that Lionsgate, not best pleased that Paramount had poached their Saw VI director to helm rival October timeframe horror flick Paranormal Activity 2, had exercised an option on Kevin Greutert.

Greutert, who had directed Saw VI and has a long history with the Saw franchise (having also edited the first five films), had been picked by Paramount to make Paranormal Activity 2, until Lionsgate exercise an option on him to basically force him to make Saw VII instead. That’s left Paramount desperately hunting for a new director for its project, and Greutert basically being forced to helm a film he presumably doesn’t want to make.

Caught in the middle of a studio tug of war, Greutert posted a statement on the matter on his website, that pretty much sums up his current position. He writes:

I'm in the middle of something really terrible right now, as anyone who has come to this site probably knows. While I fight for justice in this, the important thing is to avoid giving in to hatred and anger, because these emotions are life killers.

Hopefully we will all arrive at an amicable solution. Thank you to everyone who is working with me on this.

Kevin

That post has since been removed. But he’s since posted again:

I just had the task of telling my 83 year old mother that no, I’m not going to be allowed to direct the movie we were all so excited about when my family last got together, and that I’m being forced to leave town before getting a chance to see her again.  Yes, I’ll be filming people getting tortured YET AGAIN.  So we’ll have to put off me making a film she can actually watch for another year.

I’m not making this shit up.

That sounds to us like he’s still, as you might expect, keen to do Paranormal 2 rather than return to Saw, and it remains to be seen whether Lionsgate is playing hardball, or whether it really will force him to make a new Saw movie.

Our sympathy does wane quite a lot with his comment about "I'll be filming people getting tortured YET AGAIN". Er, nobody forced you to work on the six Saw films that you did, surely, and it's a little late in the day to start complaining about filming torture, surely? Or is that just us? Surely the point to make a stand against that of any form was when he got the script for Saw III?

But back to the matter in hand. Generally these things tend to boil down to cash one way or another, and we wonder if Paramount needs to make an offer to get its man, or whether both studios will simply go with someone else instead. We have to be honest - our hopes for both films are remarkably low...

Here’s Greutert’s official site.