fans' suggestions. For instance, instead of only showing the aftermath of a character violently dying in a flashback, they would allow it to unfold as it happened. This was in contrast to Saw, in which most of the violence was implied off-screen. Casting From the first film, Tobin Bell returned to play Jigsaw even though he wasn't obligated to return. Bell found it fascinating to reprise his role, but played the role like any of his, feeling that he needed to put himself on Jigsaw's side to get into character and play him properly. Shawnee Smith similarly returned to play Amanda even though she never imagined ever reprising the role as she didn't expect the first film to be such a hit. Smith was paid $150,000 for her role with an additional $100,000 if the film grossed over $50 million. Bousman served as a stand-in for the hooded figure who places a key behind Michael Marks' eye, who the fans immediately theorized to be the first film's protagonist Dr. Lawrence Gordon, to add "flavor" to the performance, though Bousman didn't intend the figure to be Gordon. Donnie Wahlberg was cast as Eric Matthews out of attraction to the character and the script. At sixteen years old, Erik Knudsen was cast as Daniel Matthews in his first major feature film appearance; Knudsen auditioned hard to get the role and was excited upon being notified that he had won the part, as the first Saw was one of his favorite horror films along with the Scream series. Beverley Mitchell was cast as Laura Hunter despite her dislike for horror films and her inability to watch the first film full until trying for the fifth time, but she accepted the role nonetheless because she was looking for a challenging and frightening part to push her limits, which she found in Laura physically due to the requirement to play sick and coughing. Lyriq Bent originally auditioned for the role of Xavier Chavez, but was cast as Daniel Rigg instead out of fear for racial stereotypes of casting an African-American as a drug dealer, leading to Franky G's casting as Xavier, though Bent still found stereotypical of making the character Puerto-Rican. Filming and post-production Saw II was given a larger production budget of $4 million, compared to Saws budget of a little over $1 million. The marketing budget was an additional $2 million. The first