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Screenwriter Leigh Whannell (who also plays Ray’s best buddy Gavin in the film) has primarily made his career in the horror genre. He first came into prominence for writing (and starring alongisde Cary Elwes) in the now-classic franchise-spawning Saw (2004). He went on to write the first two Saw sequels (2005, 2006), along with Dead Silence (2007) and the acclaimed Insidious (2010, 2013, 2015) films. He has also acted in several of those films, as well as others. The Mule (2014) is his first thriller/black comedy project, and a successful wayward departure from the genre that spawned his career.

Whannell has said that above all, he loves telling stories and getting a reaction out of people. That’s fun to accomplish with well-structured horror, but a powerful basis for any film genre.

Fortunately for Whannell, he still finds that he isn’t a household name, and that anonymity gives him the ability to cross genres without raising too many questions about the switch. In an interview with Movies.com, he said,

“I have the relative benefit of anonymity, because even though the films I’ve written are quite well known, I myself am not well known. I can almost present myself as a whole new person to a production company, where someone who is a bit more well known may already have this image painted on them. If Taylor Swift sits down with her record company and tells them she wants her next album to be influenced by Norwegian black metal, they’re going to say “We don’t feel that’s what you do.” She’s out there, she’s in the public consciousness, whereas I’m not. The films I’ve worked on are, but I’ve always felt separate from the films I’ve worked on… To put it another way, I feel like the Saw franchise is a celebrity, but I myself am not a celebrity. So I can almost slip under the fence in certain ways and get things made. I wrote a children’s film a while back and no one ever asked me questions of, “Why are you doing this?” “