Saw III | Saw IV | Saw 3D | Spiral
All spoilers for the final movie will be unmarked ahead. Read on or go back—make your choice.
- An early iteration of the movie's script would have established Zeke as being related to David Tapp, one of the main characters of the first film. The writers dropped the idea because it "didn't pass the smell test".
- For Mr. Snuggles' voice, to differentiate from Tobin Bell's voice for Billy the Puppet, numerous voices of women, children and men were considered before the crew settled on a computer-simulated voice two days before the sound mix finished. This was likely dropped because Logan was shown to have done the same in Jigsaw.
- Captain Angie Garza was originally written as a male character, but the producers opted to cast Marisol Nichols instead.
- Patrick McManus originally auditioned to play Marv Bozwick, but was called back to play Peter Dunleavy instead while Dan Petronijevic was cast as Bozwick.
- Bousman had stated that Spiral was the Saw film that faced the most trouble with the MPAA after Saw IV, with numerous scenes and moments being cut while the crew where fighting to keep the most scenes as possible. He had also lamented that said scenes featured plenty of impressive work from a special effects artist he had worked with since a long time ago, meaning that said work would never come to screen. Those scenes included the following:
- Drury was meant to have a trap in which he had to cut off his face. The reason the scene involving the trap was cut depends on who you ask.If you're curious Some behind the scenes material, including a photo of a brief part of the trap's setup and a transcript extract, has been published, as seen here
. According to the original transcript, Drury was going to be used by Schenk as a decoy to trick Marcus into believing Zeke was recently killed, with only the aftermath of the trap being shown. As a matter of fact, the abrupt blooper involving Marcus suddenly getting bloody hands was a result of this deleted scene. - In a similar vein, there was a scene in which, according to Bousman in an Instagram post, "the killer took a knife [and] peeled all of the skin off a body." Presumably, the scene would have shown Schenk flaying the skin of his accomplice's corpse to use it as a decoy.
- Drury was meant to have a trap in which he had to cut off his face. The reason the scene involving the trap was cut depends on who you ask.If you're curious Some behind the scenes material, including a photo of a brief part of the trap's setup and a transcript extract, has been published, as seen here
- According to an interview with Deborah Kraus' actress Edie Inksetter, there was a scene slated to take place around the film's ending, in which Kraus comes to Schenk's apartment to tell his "wife" that he just died, only to find out that none of the family relatives he claimed to have (including a pet dog, according to her) were actually real due to their absence; she would end up seeing a copy of Mr. Snuggles while exploring the apartment further.
- Although the film is the first in the series to not include John Kramer or Billy the Puppet (despite the title referencing the spirals on Billy's cheeks, which were used as a separate Jigsaw symbol), the crew widely discussed bringing Tobin Bell back until the last day of filming, although John was never included in any version of the screenplay. Among the discarded ideas considered:
- John Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger proposed including a post-credits scene in which John met a young Schenk after his father's death, bonding with him and gifting him with Mr. Snuggles.
- Darren Lynn Bousman considered having Bell singing a Johnny Cash cover during the ending sequence given Bell's singing abilities, but dropped the idea for being "too gimmicky".
- An early draft actually featured Jigsaw's voice in the tapes, which would have turned out to be a digitally edited version with words rearranged by the Spiral Killer to create different tapes.
- Boz's wife Kara and the black SUV (both of which were mostly left for unthreaded scenes in the final film) were meant to be part of a sub-plot in which Zeke found out Boz had various affair meetings with another man unbeknownst to Kara. Said man was the owner of the SUV, and would have been a Red Herring for the Spiral Killer's identity.
- The restraint on Boz's tongue in the Subway Trap was initially drafted as a set of fishhooks. Bousman simplified it into the final version's vice.
