Leigh Whannell

“You can't compare David Cronenberg's 'The Fly' to the older version.”

“You know, by the time you get to the fourth film in a franchise you're really mining for something different. You're really looking for a way to go about things that the audience hasn't already seen.”

“I just try to write literally what I love. That's usually the barometer that I use. As trite as it sounds, I'm like, 'what would I want to see? What would I be excited about?'”

“I don't know if I can see myself writing another 'Saw' film. It's such a special part of my life, and I almost don't want to ruin it by going back.”

“Writing feels safe, you know, it's a hard job, but at least you're in your office or wherever you are and there's no one standing over your shoulder staring at what you're writing. And when you're directing, everybody's looking over your shoulder.”

“The movies sort of tell you what they want to be as you're writing them.”

“After 'Saw,' we got offered every horror remake under the sun, and I was just always thinking, 'I don't see how this could be interesting for me.'”

“I felt the violence in 'Upgrade' was necessary because I wanted to show what a computer was capable of.”

“I love, and I've always loved, contained sci-fi films that utilize practical effects. I feel like the human eye can tell when something is actually in the frame and when it was inserted digitally later.”

“You never meet other screenwriters because it's such a lonely profession.”

“I will say that when it comes to the horror genre, for me, the scariest thing is when something is actually in the frame.”

“Australia, most of the filmmakers there write a film and they direct it. There's a lot of writer/directors there, because nobody wants to write a script and then let it go when they've had that much of a personal investment to it, because you're not getting paid huge amounts of money in Australia to direct.”

“Well you know, the big trick with 'Saw,' the sleight of hand that you have to pull off is that - spoiler alert - the bad guy, the antagonist, is right there in front of your face, literally.”

“I remember when James Wan and I did the first 'Saw' movie, a lot of people would say to us, 'Well, you left the door open for a sequel.' And we would say, 'No, we literally closed the door!' We thought it was a nice ending. Little did we know that the producers had other ideas once the film was a hit.”

“Supernatural films allow you to bend the rules of time and space - that's really fun, especially for screenwriters who often get shot down for logic reasons.”

“I do feel like in filmmaking you are largely in control of the perception of you. If you want to be seen as the comedic person you've got to write a comedy and go after that.”

“In chatting to directors over the years, including James Wan, they always tell you the war stories. No one ever says, 'Oh, I had a great time on that film.' It's always this went wrong, that went wrong.”

“I was influenced by people like David Fincher and William Friedkin, and these directors who kinda paint their films with these dark shades.”

“What I feel like science fiction fans respond to is just people trying to hit them with something new, something they haven't seen. And if you do that you'll be okay.”

“I think the way to create a lot of terror in a haunted house film is to have a bunch of people who have no idea what's happening to them, and you sort of live the movie through their eyes.”