While James Wan was being interviewed about Dead Silence (see the new trailer here) he was quizzed about Saw IV and what exactly has been going on with the development of the film and how they plan on continuing the series.

It looks like he isn't that far removed from the new film after all as in the comments at UK IGN he says:

"We have someone in mind [to direct]...And we're working on the script right now. That's pretty much where things are at. Saw IV is a tricky one for me to talk about because everyone wants to know about it, but it's just at such an early stage."

Then they tackled the tricky subject of just how they are going to return after Saw III (Filmstalker review).

"That's kind of a weird one to answer only because pretty much all of the Saw films take place in so many different timelines," explained Wan. "Sometimes the film touches here, but then it goes all the way forward but then it goes all the way backward again. It does touch on so many different time frames. Is [Saw IV] a prequel or sequel? It's kind of all intermixed. We jump everywhere, and Saw III did setup a lot of elements where Saw IV may end up going."

Okay so they could look back and spend more time on how Jigsaw became Jigsaw, even though we saw some quick elements of that in the third film. Perhaps there's more to explore, maybe his first attempts and how he decided to do what he does.

Or we could go forward, and perhaps everything was setup so that the mantle is passed on. After all, he can't keep going forever can he?

What do you think? Could the story work with either of these options? I have a huge belief it's the latter, and we're going to see how the setups were there to create a new Jigsaw in the future.