[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Final Destination Bloodlines.]

Summary

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff talks spoilers with Final Destination Bloodlines directors Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky.

Stein and Lipovsky reveal the original versions of the movie’s death scenes, including a Titanic-like opening.

They also revisit filming Tony Todd’s scene, touch on Easter eggs, clarify the movie’s connections to past Final Destination films and characters, and more.

For fans of the Final Destination franchise, 14 years is a long time between installments, but what directing duo Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky (Freaks) have done with Final Destination Bloodlines was well worth the wait. In fact, it passed the “Perri Test,” as Lipovsky coined it, with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff giving it a super fan’s stamp of approval. After landing this major sequel, Stein and Lipovsky inherited the responsibility of bringing audiences back to the horror saga with something fresh that would excite longtime fans, but could also entertain new ones. Fortunately, the minds of Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home), and screenwriters Guy Busick (Ready or Not) and Lori Evans Taylor (Bed Rest) introduced the bloodlines concept, which allowed the directors to “do the premonition in a different way” and find “a really great way of invigorating the character work.” They insist, it was an idea that “demanded to be made.” With Final Destination Bloodlines in theaters now, Nemiroff had the opportunity to pick the brains behind the latest installment, digging into spoiler territory for behind-the-scenes details on death scenes, that “beautiful orgy of death” of an opening premonition, and even beloved Hollywood legend Tony Todd’s (Candyman) emotional final feature role. If the movie left you hungry for more of Death’s Design, check out the full conversation in the video above or the transcript below for everything from script changes to what could come next for a franchise that could continue forever. After all, “Death’s work is never done.”
Why Do We Love Watching People Die (In ‘Final Destination’)?

“It’s really rare that you have that kind of experience in a horror film.”

PERRI NEMIROFF: Before I even get into my questions, sincerely, congratulations and thank you. One of the coolest things in the world is when you get a new installment of one of your favorite film franchises, and instantly it skyrockets to the top of my ranking. Your movie is so good at embracing the bombastic, crazy reasons why I love this franchise, but then the bloodlines storyline is so smart and character-forward. It feels like the perfect marriage for a horror movie. ZACH LIPOVSKY: That’s what we thought, too. When we heard they were making another Final Destination, we were a little nervous because 5 has such a great ending. It kind of feels like that wraps it all up. And then when we started to learn about the bloodlines idea and realized all the potential that it could create on a character level, but also on a horror level, because our premise that we were telling the studio was if we care about these people more and they care about each other more, it’ll make the stakes of all of these set pieces even more intense. We tried to just push that as far as we could. Before I get into all of my nitty-gritty detail questions, this is a conversation that I’ve been having since the day I became a Final Destination fan – trying to figure out what it is about Death’s Design and watching a group of characters get picked off in the most extreme ways that speaks to me. I’ll toss that idea towards you two now. What is it about the Final Destination concept that really scratches an itch and fills you up as horror lovers? ADAM STEIN: We have a few theories, but we’d be curious to hear yours, too. The first is that it just brings anxiety to life. Everyone has anxieties as they go about their daily lives. Usually, you try to quiet those anxieties so you can live, but the horror of Final Destination is what if those anxieties were real and far worse than you ever imagined? I think another aspect of it is that we’ve all made a pact. We all know we’re going to die. In our real lives, Death comes for us all. LIPOVSKY: And that’s fair. STEIN: That’s just part of living. But the characters in Final Destination have gone against that bargain. They’ve survived when they shouldn’t have, so Death coming after them sort of has this settling the scores feeling, so you end up rooting for Death to get them because that’s fair. LIPOVSKY: I think it also allows you to enjoy the deaths in a way that is fun, because it’s not like Saw or Hostel, where the deaths are sort of unfair to the characters. In this case, they’ve cheated it, so it’s kind of fair that they get taken out. And Death does it in such a creative way. Both of those things together allow it to be fun, and it’s really rare that you have that kind of experience in a horror film. STEIN: I think the cleverness of Death is something you end up relishing and rooting for. Death’s sense of irony and the plan and the payoff. That he’s killing people not just to kill people, but doing it in the most fun way he can think of it, makes it fun for the audience.

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Before ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ Hits Theaters, Let’s Track Death’s Long, 14-Year Journey Back to Theaters

Death, where the hell have you been loca!?

I definitely have a soft spot for this franchise because it not only sparked my love of horror movies, but it was one of the first memories I have of processing the beauty of horror movie magic – what happens behind the scenes in order to earn those kinds of reactions in the theater. I also just love the communal reaction that these movies create. I was telling you on Friday night when we did our Ladies Night screening, it’s the most satisfying feelings to hear people respond exactly as you all intended. LIPOVSKY: A special treat we’ve had that most people don’t get is, during the editing process, we do test screenings and they record the audience with night vision cameras so you can look at them later. There’s all these reactions of seeing, like, 100 people holding their nose just in sympathy. There’s all these non-verbal reactions that you get to see of all these people doing it at once. It’s pretty awesome. STEIN: That’s been my favorite part, too, just the theatrical reactions, and little titters of discomfort that ripple across the audience, or laughter. This movie, like you said, is playful. It’s a lot funnier than people expected, and I think the studio at first was like, “Is it too funny? Is this good? Can horror be this funny?” But the audiences were telling us not only did they love the kills, but they love the humor. You have these moments that are hard to explain. When the kid gets crushed by the piano — what is it, 12 minutes into the movie? — the entire audience erupts in cheers! Everyone in my theater did exactly that. STEIN: Everyone’s cheering for the death of a small child. What is that about? I mean, first, he deserved it. Let’s just say that. He’s a brat. But I think there’s kind of almost a Looney-Tunes-brought-to-life aspect to that death. That just makes so much sense. It just fits. But you don’t totally see it coming. You have a five-second anticipation after you see the piano go through the window, and then it cuts to him. There’s just this moment of anticipation. You’re like, “Oh.” And then it happens. The timing is pretty perfect. LIPOVSKY: We worked very hard to kind of scrape his brains. There’s a chunk of his head that kind of rolls along the ground just as he gets crushed. It was super fun. We actually dropped a real piano from, like, 80 feet to get that element so that you actually see how a piano explodes.
How Past ‘Final Destination’ Kills Inspired ‘Bloodlines’

The directors share their personal favorites, too.

Custom Image by Federico Napoli 

I fear you’ve been asked this a lot, but I have to know – of all the past films, what single death scene is your absolute favorite? LIPOVSKY: I’ve always responded to the bridge collapse in FD5 as the ultimate of what I love about Final Destination, and all the little kills that are in that, the temple of it, the scale of it. That’s the one I always go back to when I just want to remind myself what makes FD so great, even though it’s a premonition of that kind of giant scale. There’s plenty of other specific deaths that I love, but that’s the one that I always come back to. I live, like, five minutes from that bridge, and they were building it and repairing it. There were giant holes in it, just like in the movie, so I’ve lived the experience of crossing that bridge while it has holes in it. So, that’s my special place. I grew up on Long Island in New York, so all the Long Island stuff in the first film, every time I see the beach, I get really excited. LIPOVSKY: Exactly. STEIN: We ended up driving over that bridge many times with the entire crew in a bus because we were scouting. Iris’s cabin was the other side of the bridge, so as we’re scouting with the crew, we’re all packed into this bus going over that bridge back and forth. Every time, we were next to the producer, Craig Perry, and we were like, “Craig, if it comes, we’re trying it again.” [Laughs] My favorite premonition is FD2. The logs are unbeatable. The way that whole sequence is choreographed is just incredible. But I think it is interesting to think about specific deaths beyond the premonitions that did influence us very heavily in this movie. One of them was the screw on the balance beam in FD5. There’s just so much suspense in watching this tiny thing, and all the feet missing it. Nothing’s happening when you think about it. It’s just a screw, but you’re squirming in your seat. You can barely look at it, and that’s just such masterful suspense. That was a big inspiration to the shard of glass in the ice during the barbecue, because we wanted to create that same sense of visceral, cringiness, but then also, we’re very inspired by the way the screw then doesn’t kill the person. It just becomes the first domino in the mousetrap, just like the glass. It comes into play in a way you didn’t expect. I love those examples. I have a soft spot for the Ms. Lewton kill in the first one, and how Death is somewhat acting like a classic slasher. There are so many little Easter eggs throughout that sequence. LIPOVSKY: The way that they showed that was an inspiration for the tattoo parlor. There’s a giant magnet on the wall and then a glowing circle, both of which are saying how he’s going to die in an MRI machine. That was inspired by the stained-glass window. Sheila [Hanahan Taylor] brought up the circle motif the other night, and I hadn’t clocked it before, but the second she said it, I’m like, “Oh, it’s all over your movie!” I love touches like that.
‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Pays Homage to This Oscar-Winning Film

The opening sequence originally took place on a riverboat.

Image via 20th Century Studios

I know about how you two pitched to get this gig. Are we ever going to see that pitch video? LIPOVSKY: No. [Laughs] STEIN: It was live. That’s the thing. It doesn’t exist. It wasn’t recorded. I thought so. STEIN: Which is a bummer. We couldn’t record because it was their Zoom meeting. They’ve been kicking themselves that they didn’t record the meeting. So, we have elements of it that were little visual effects elements that were part of the Zoom background, but we don’t have the whole thing recorded.

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‘Final Destination 6’: Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein to Direct After Deadly Zoom Meeting

Let’s get this production rolling!

When you first signed on to direct this movie, what state was the script in, and how does that original script compare to what the final film became? LIPOVSKY: So Jon Watts had the original concept for building this movie around a family. He had written an opening idea of how the movie would work. There had been a first draft that Guy [Busick] and Lori [Evans Taylor] put together of the movie that basically has the structure that the finished movie is, but I would say, almost entirely, every set piece, including the opening, changed over the many years. It took years of iterating with everyone. That’s how scripts work. You do a first draft and then everyone gets around and you kind of brainstorm and you continue to iterate over and over and over again. We did that with the writers and with Jon and us and Craig and Sheila, the producers, and sat around Craig’s dining room table and just threw around ideas for as long as we could to continue to iterate. In the original draft, it started in the ‘50s. We eventually made it the late ‘60s. It was a period piece, obviously, but that first one was actually set on a riverboat, which we were just like, “There’s no way to out-Titanic Titanic in this situation.” Adam has a huge fear of heights, so we were trying to think of something. The opening premonitions are a very root fear: fear of flying, fear of rollercoasters, fear of driving. We were like, “We need something that is a very elemental root fear.” And so fear of heights was what we started to build that around. Also, in the late ‘60s, there were a lot of restaurants that were built in that retro futuristic style, and we wanted it to be the most romantic, beautiful opening premonition that it could be. But Titanic is one of my all-time favorite movies, and there’s definitely a lot of homage to Titanic in that opening sequence that sort of carried over from the riverboat. Titanic and Jurassic Park. LIPOVSKY: That’s right. Yes! I like your taste.
‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Directors Reveal Alternate Deaths

“There are a lot of differences.”

You just mentioned that the opening premonition changed. During our Q&A the other night, I found out that Darlene’s death changed. Are there any other changes? STEIN: Well, that one we actually filmed. That one changed after production. Every death was different. Erik didn’t used to be a tattoo artist; he was like a live stream guy that was killed while he was doing a VR game live stream. I remember Julia was really into monster trucks, and she had a monster truck explode. There are a lot of differences. LIPOVSKY: That’s how movies are. They constantly evolve over years of collaboration with the whole team and all the crew. Even big location changes. When we were in prep, it looked like instead of the backyard barbecue for a while, it was like a Chucky Cheese. It was called Hauer’s Happy House. It was going to be bowling and bumper cars and arcade machines and all that stuff, but we realized that, about family, it would work better in a backyard. Also, right after a funeral, we were really stretching that after a funeral, they’d go to a Chucky Cheese. [Laughs] What was Bobby’s original death? STEIN: That’s a good question. I can’t remember it. I don’t think it was an MRI. I think it was something different. LIPOVSKY: I don’t remember either. The allergy and MRI combo is so incredibly effective. STEIN: Owen [Patrick Joyner], the actor who plays Bobby, actually has a peanut allergy, and we didn’t know that when we were casting. It just was a random thing, a coincidence. But he brought so much real fear to that moment because he relates to it. Also, the little moment where he says, “Maybe I grew out of it,” came from his own experience, always hoping that he was going to grow out of his allergy. He made me feel it the way he delivers that line.
The Perfect Cast Is Crucial to ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Success

The directors discuss finding the right lineup for Death’s hit list.

Image via Warner Bros.

You put together the perfect ensemble. I think the perfect ensemble is vital to the success of any Final Destination movie, but again, given the bloodlines concept, I think you needed a group that felt like a real family with history and weight to their relationships. Of all the main roles in this movie, which was the easiest to cast, where it was like the right person magically appeared, but then I also want to know which role took the most legwork to fill? STEIN: Wow, that is such a good question. We started with Stefani because she’s sort of the linchpin to the family. We looked all around the world, really, for this actor. It was a very hard role to audition for because we gave them the scene that’s, like, two pages of monologue about the family and the history and Iris, and a lot of people took that into more of an expositional kind of book report place. It was a really hard scene to nail, and Kaitlyn [Santa Juana], from the very beginning, brought so much urgency to it. Her panic grew as her family interrupted her, and it was just so real and so personal that she rose to the top right away. So, I think it’s funny because that was the linchpin for starting the family casting, but in some ways it was the one that was most obvious from the beginning. So, that was really great. I brought that scene up to her the other night because it’s not easy to deliver all of that exposition in a way that has that urgency. You feel the weight, but it also doesn’t take away from the energy of being sandwiched between these epic kill scenes. She does that beautifully. STEIN: Yeah. Absolutely. LIPOVSKY: A tough one to find was Bobby, because Owen really brings this sort of energy at the top that you think maybe he’s just sort of a jockey, tough guy, a meathead type presentation. But then immediately, you see he’s this big softy and he’s got all these insecurities and he’s got a peanut allergy and he’s really worried, and he loves his family and he wants help. STEIN: And he loves his Paco. LIPOVSKY: He loves his turtle. I love Paco. LIPOVSKY: Finding people that could present as a jock, but then also give you all the depths of these insecurities and anxiety was very difficult to find. He’s so charming, and so many of these little improvs that he has in the movie just came from his personality. It was so wonderful to find him.

Image via Warner Bros.

One thing that came up a lot at the junket the other day, which I really appreciate and I feel is really rare, especially with studio horror movies, is the emphasis everyone put on you giving them time to rehearse, to do improv takes, and to do silent takes. I’m fascinated by silent takes. That’s another video I really want to see! STEIN: That we can probably do. We actually have that one on camera. It’s fascinating watching something like that and seeing the new that can come out of a scene without any dialogue. STEIN: That was the other thing. We found these people that kind of looked like a family you could believe as a family, but then through rehearsals, we really started to bring them together and get to know each other. We even rehearsed scenes or improvised scenes in rehearsal that weren’t in the script. Things like the party where Stefani’s going away to college. Like, “Let’s do that scene,” so that they all had kind of a shared history with each other. They just are all so funny and so talented that they really cracked each other up and got along so well. We did a lot of improv in the auditions, too, to make sure that we were finding people who could do that, because we love to use improv as a way to find those little undiscovered gold moments. Usually, you improvise with actors and 90 to 95% you can’t use because it just goes off the rails, but then that five to 10% is just so gold that it makes the movie. Some of the biggest laughs, some of the biggest moments in the movie come from improvised lines that just sprung out of the actors mouths in the moment, and they’re just beautiful. Which character changed the most from script to screen for that reason, where the actors started with what you gave them, and during that process, they found layers that you two never even realized were there? LIPOVSKY: Richard [Harmon], who plays Erik, has always been known as just an improvisational actor who always brings those elements, but he brings it to a level where he’s improvising within the emotion while also still being hilarious. Because it’s tricky, when people hear improv, they think, “Oh, shit, now I have to be funny,” but he’s not doing it at that level. He’s really doing it from a character space and level, where he’s being very dramatic but also incredibly hilarious. That’s just a whole nother level. STEIN: Sometimes the drama of it is what makes it funnier. Like in the moment where he’s storming out of the room completely torn apart because his whole life has been a lie, every time he left the room, we asked him to say something different. So, we did probably 10 takes, and every time he stormed out of the room, he shouted something different, through tears. The one that’s in the movie — “Is that why he always wanted to play catch?” — it’s just so great. But there were equally brilliant, sometimes weirder ones that we just loved, too. “Is that why he came to all my swim meets?!” LIPOVSKY: “Is that why he always called me ‘Buckaroo’?” [Laughs] Then it was hard because all the rest of the cast had to stay in this very mournful, very dramatic, crying-type space, and every time he would run out, you could just see them doing everything they could to stay in character and not laugh.
Tony Todd Shares Something Invaluable In His Last Film

“You can see in his eyes that he’s speaking right through the camera to the audience.”

Image via Warner Bros.

Speaking of improv, I’ll veer into Tony Todd’s scene because I’ve heard a little bit about how you put the reins in his hands for that moment. I think it’s one of the most beautiful scenes in the entire movie. It’s so incredibly important to this franchise, and also to the horror community that he was such a big part of. Can you tell me what that scene looked like on the page when you went into filming, and then walk me through how it evolved when you put it in his hands? LIPOVSKY: For the scene, we worked really closely with him and the writers and everyone to build a scene, which is basically the scene that you see. We knew it was going to be a scene that gave an origin to Bludworth and developed him out a little bit more as a human character, rather than as just a mysterious mentor figure, and he was really excited about that. We knew that, like you said, that Bludworth is accepting that he’s going to die and is saying goodbye to them and saying he’s done with giving them random groups of people coming to him advice. So, the designing principal of that scene is as you see it. But really, it was the last moment when he’s at the door where we had a few lines in there for him that weren’t as written. STEIN: I looked the other day, and it actually ended with, “Now that my old friend is gone, I’m retiring. I’m going to enjoy the time I have left.” And then he walks out the door. In our scene, where we ended up staging it, it’s basically when he’s getting up and walking to the door. So, what we added was this moment where he stops and turns. LIPOVSKY: That’s where we basically asked him, “Tony, just speak from the heart about what this has all been about and what’s on your mind.” Because he was ill when we were shooting with him and he was so full of joy and so excited to be there and cracking jokes and had so much gravitas and love and warmth and all that stuff when he was there. We were just like, “What do you want to say that this has all been about?” So those lines that he has about how life is precious, and you need to enjoy every single second because you never know when, he said that from the heart. You can see in his eyes that he’s speaking right through the camera to the audience, and I think it was even more impactful to us in the room because he was living by those words. It wasn’t just something he said because he thought it’d be good in a movie. That whole day was very special because his mortality was present in the room. You could see how physically weak he was, but he was cherishing every second, and he was loving it. He was so happy to be there, and smiling. So, he kind of communicated the message that he was living, and it was such a special moment that we’re all really grateful to be able to capture, and he was grateful to be able to give.

Image via Warner Bros.

That’s a really special scene in your movie. I’ll thank you for that moment because I always adored him. He was one of the perfect examples of an opportunity where you should meet your hero because he cared as much as I did about all of the horror work he’s done. And he loved cats! He was just such a warm presence that always made me feel like I was in the right place. STEIN: He’s such a sweetie. That was the most surprising thing because I knew him from his characters, which have this very intimidating presence. In person, he was just goofy, fun, friendly, and smiling all the time. He was just a happy presence, even though, like Zach said, he was physically weak. Just so giving. He and Kaitlyn formed a real bond. I don’t know what happened when they first met, but they had private jokes by the end of the day. They just had a connection there. It had that bittersweet quality because he was so generous and joyful with us, but then you could see… Craig and Sheila, who have worked on all the movies as producers, you could kind of see in Craig’s face that he thought this might be the last time he sees Tony. It was very, very sad to lose him.
Yes, This ‘Final Destination 2’ Star Was Almost in ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’

“It didn’t feel necessary.”

I’ll stick with that scene a moment longer because that’s the scene where we get the Kimberly reference. Was there ever a point when you considered bringing A.J. [Cook] back to this franchise? LIPOVSKY: There was. Actually, I think the very first draft we read, she walked in. He said, “And here she is!” STEIN: Which was really cool were. We were like, “That’d be great to have her!” Ultimately, we couldn’t get over the fact that she was just, like, waiting there in the closet or something for them to show up. LIPOVSKY: Because they showed up randomly at the hospital. Then, the more we thought about it, too, this is really more a movie about him and his connection. It didn’t feel necessary. Some people leaked online that she was on set — that never happened. I don’t even know if she was ever even reached out to. It was just that the very early first draft was like, she exists in the world, should we bring her back? And we were like, “No.” STEIN: “And now, here to tell you her real life story, Kimberly Corman!” As much as I wanted to see the character return, what you all decided on was the right move for this story. STEIN: Well, you never know. Future movies.
Do the Newspaper Clippings Have ‘Final Destination’ Easter Eggs?

“I think there is a bit of confusion about the origin of the bloodlines and how that relates to the rest of the franchise.”

Image via Warner Bros.

One other thing that I know my answer to, but I’ve heard some people discuss so I want to get it from you just to confirm it – when it comes to the newspaper clippings with all of the people who have died in the Skyview, there isn’t a single person that appears in any other Final Destination movie, is there? LIPOVSKY: So, we spent a long time on that wall. If anyone wants to freeze frame, there’s a lot of detail in there as to what went down, but I think there is a bit of confusion about the origin of the bloodlines and how that relates to the rest of the franchise. One of the things we all debated early on was, obviously, when you have something that starts so early, you’re like, “Oh, could this be the origin of all the other movies?” We debated that for a second, but then we realized none of those other characters’ parents died, so it can’t be. STEIN: It would just break the canon to do that. Because in FD2, you meet their parents. You meet parents in FD3 and FD1. It would just break those movies to do that, so that’s ultimately why we didn’t go that far. But Iris has studied those other premonitions. Iris has studied all those deaths to build her book so that she knows how Death works, partially because of her being an FD fan, studying all the the previous ones. LIPOVSKY: One small fun detail, though, that’s in there is that we decided that a lot of the people die later on in similar ways to how they died at the SkyView. So, there’s lots of newspaper articles that homage how they died in the SkyView, how they were later killed in either the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s. They’re all kind of related to rollerblading accidents in the ‘90s, and all kinds of specific things like that. STEIN: For example, the Penny Kid, who gets crushed by a piano, if you find his newspaper obituary, it says, “Pickpocket Killed by Piano, Moving Truck.” Oh, I love that detail so, so much. STEIN: The woman who gets lit on fire is like, “Socialite Dies in House Fire.” That one maître d’ dies in an elevator accident. Death took them in ways that were appropriate. LIPOVSKY: And Iris is sort of similar. In the premonition, she dies kind of skewered through the neck on this piece of rubble, and then the weathervane skewers her through the neck in kind of the exact same spot. So, Death’s coming to get its collection exactly the way it wanted it.
The Directors Explain Iris Campbell’s Death-Proof Cabin

Did you catch the OG Final Destination throwbacks?

Image via Warner Bros.

Speaking of the back half of Iris’s journey, I was very curious about the production design of her hideaway, her compound. Can you pinpoint a couple of details in that set that might speak to what she’s able to collect, how she feels safe enough from Death to orchestrate all that, and also use it in a way that protects her? STEIN: We went through a lot of iterations on the design of her compound. One of my favorite details is the wind chimes. Death comes on the wind in these movies, so what would you do to create an early warning system for death? When we thought of homemade wind chimes, it just had this fun feel, because it’s the kind of thing you see going in, and you’re like, “Okay, that’s creepy and weird.” Then, when they all start going at once, it makes perfect sense. That was really fun. We definitely went back and forth a lot on the scariness of the outside of her cabin, and it ultimately came down to, she’s built this place to keep people away. All those spikes and stuff aren’t to protect her from Death, they’re to keep strangers from coming in because strangers can drop pennies and do other things that could trigger Rube Goldbergs to kill her. But then on the inside, she’s designed the cabin in a way that she can basically see any detail that signals that Death is coming for her. We always love the moment in FD1 where Alex goes into a cabin and is opening tuna cans with oven mitts and is securing the place against Death. We love the feeling of, like, “What if instead of one night like in FD1, what if that went on for 50 years? What would you do? What kind of expert would you become? And all those subtle cracks that Death could get into your cabin?” So, that was sort of where we were working from. LIPOVSKY: There’s even a nod, I don’t know if you caught it, but Alex in FD1 looks up to the rafters and says, “I see you, you fuck,” and she says the same thing, which was kind of a nod to the connection of that scene. I love me some good Easter eggs. Here’s one lore thing that I was curious about. The idea of Iris ultimately getting cancer. Is that a move on Death’s part? She just lasted so long that somehow Death is able to not necessarily set traditional traps, but stop her that way? STEIN: I think so, but he’s not happy about it. It’s like he can’t get her any other way, but cancer is boring to him. Obviously, cancer is very not boring in the real world and very tragic, but in the context of FD, that’s not how he wants to do it. There’s something about the concept that gets all the more chilling to know that even if someone is able to outrun the traps, that darkness lurks for them at the end. STEIN: Well, they can’t be immortal, right? But she’s lived a long life. She’s gone into her 80s. You can’t live forever, but she’s done a pretty good job. She’s protected her entire family tree. LIPOVSKY: Also, she didn’t die of cancer. Let’s just be clear.

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The Final Destination Franchise Is So Much Better Than It Gets Credit For —10 Reasons Why It Deserves Reappraisal

No accidents, no coincidences, no mishaps, and no escapes.

Is that a blood cannon? You just shoot a blood cannon in Kaitlyn’s face? LIPOVSKY: Which is actually a remarkable feat of acting for a few reasons. One is that, when your face is covered in blood, we told her, “Don’t open your eyes because that’s not the type of blood that’s eye-safe.” She did open her eyes and was able to continue to act. But what you don’t realize is when you shoot those things, it’s an air pressurized cannon full of blood right at her face, but it sounds like this, [makes a raspberry noise]. STEIN: It makes a very silly sound. LIPOVSKY: You’re supposed to give this incredibly dramatic, scared-out-of-your-mind, serious performance, and you hear the silliest fart noise you’ve ever heard right before it happens. That was the most impressive part, that she didn’t start laughing hysterically. There were a few times where we also told her, “When you’re running after the garbage truck, don’t touch it. Because you’re an actor, you’re not allowed to do any stunts.” STEIN: Well, actors sometimes do crazy stuff. That’s how they get hurt. They do stuff they’re not supposed to because they’re in the moment. So, she’s running alongside the garbage truck, and we knew her at that point, and we were like, “Just don’t get close enough that you can touch it.” LIPOVSKY: So she ran as fast as she could and put her hand right on it. She’s like, “You like that? You like that? That looked cool, didn’t it?” STEIN: As she’s doing it, she starts grabbing the ladder, and I was like, “Cut! Cut!” I was worried about her. Then she came up to me with this grin on her face. She’s like, “You’re welcome.” And that’s in the movie. It’s so good.
The Directors Explain How They Pulled Off That Explosive Opening Sequence

“The Skyview was just such a beautiful orgy of death.”

Image via Warner Bros.

Going into filming, which overall sequence, or maybe a specific moment in one, were you most looking forward to filming, and then ultimately, was that the most creatively fulfilling for you, or did a different one catch you by surprise? STEIN: We loved all our death children. The MRI is super fun and has such great practical effects to it that that would be fun to talk about, but the SkyView was just such a beautiful orgy of death that took us over a year to figure out every detail. The script’s stage started with it, and going back and forth on the script, and then we did storyboards, and then we animated the whole sequence so that we could watch it in time, put music to it, plan out every shot. There’s so many different parts to it. There was probably six different sets that were built. There was the main set that was built entirely out of concrete so that we could blow it up, so we could light it on fire safely 120 feet across. But then there was another set for the part that’s tilted, where people are sliding down into the glass. Then there’s another set for the one where we’re underneath the dance floor and people are falling through that’s lifted high up in the air. Then there’s another set for the one where she’s hanging on by her finger. Then there’s a different building entirely for the lobby and the exterior, and another one for the Sky deck where the balcony proposal happens. Those are all different pieces, and you have to know exactly which piece is happening where and how you’re shooting it and how many makeup effects bodies you need to build to rip apart. Oh, and another set for the staircase. That was a different one. Oh my gosh. We try very consciously to keep the childhood joy of making movies and putting all this stuff together because that’s where I think the best work comes from. So, it was this childhood dark humor of, like, “How are we going to rip these people apart and burn them alive in the most fun way?” And then getting to create these little Lego set things of how all this will come together. Then seeing it come together with these epic stunts and fireballs and all the rest of it was just so much joy. There are so many pieces to that. She was telling me that the actual filming of it was split into two parts and how wowed she was by the fact that you don’t see that in the finished product. That opening is really something else. The pressure is, pun intended, sky-high for something like that. LIPOVSKY: There’s a specific little detail, if there are any filmmakers in your audience, of the movie magicness of it, where we had one set that’s completely flat, one set that’s completely tilted, but how do you get between those sets? One of the things that we did that just delighted us to no end, because it’s all in-camera, is when we were shooting the flat set, it had a Volume around it so that you could see out the windows and you have the sunset coming in and it’s all natural, real light, which is really amazing to capture in a way that’s really beautiful. But because it’s basically a live video game engine out there, we realized, and we call this the Star Trek moment, “Let’s have everyone in the room start leaning forward. We’ll pull all the furniture with fishing line all towards the windows, but then on the Volume, we’ll just have the world start to go up,” because they could literally turn the world on the computer screen. In the camera, when you see the horizon start to move up, and everyone leaning forward, and all the furniture slide, your brain says the floor is moving, even though everyone’s completely flat. They all feel really dumb doing it, thinking, “This is never going to work,” but once you put it all into the camera, it looks amazing.

Image via Warner Bros.

Oh, that’s so smart! Can you give me another example of something you did to film one of these death scenes that might make someone go, “That looks ridiculous, but on screen it looks incredible?” STEIN: The MRI is one of my favorite moments because you have this moment where Erik is bending backwards in the MRI and the back of his head is going to touch his heels. We did that by building a contraption that was like an old-school magician’s contraption where it was a double decker platform inside the MRI. So, Richard was lying on his back on the top half with his top half pointing up, and then there was a stunt person squeezed into the bottom half, facing down. They were able to pull the platforms into the MRI, and they just fold back, and his shirt was pinned to the other guy’s pants. So when you’re watching it in person, live, some of the crew even had to look away just from that, just from the practical getting pulled backwards because it felt like his back was breaking, which was just so much fun. I love horror movies. I just love it. STEIN: Another fun thing about the Star Trek moment with Brec [Bassinger], because she’s in her early 20s, everyone was talking about, “This is the day we’re doing the Star Trek thing.” She was panicked because she’s never seen Star Trek, and she had no idea what we were talking about. LIPOVSKY: She knew it was sci-fi related. STEIN: She was like, “Do I have to watch Star Trek now? What is going on?” But we’re like, “No, it’s just because in that show, they just pretended to be moving.”
Were Stefani and Charlie Ever Going to Survive?

The original ending was “a bit of a downer.”

Image via Warner Bros.

Is there a draft of your movie where Stefani and Charlie survive at the end? LIPOVSKY: I don’t know if they ever fully survived. Did they? We had a lot of different drafts. STEIN: There was. In the original original draft, Stefani does get into the cabin. Mom died earlier, and then Stefani and Charlie try to get to Iris’s cabin, and she gets into the cabin, and then Charlie’s at the door, being like, “I can’t lose you, Stefani. You’re going to be here…” She’s like, “Go away, Charlie. I’m going to protect you.” And he left and she stayed in the cabin, alive, and she was just going to live Iris’s life. LIPOVSKY: Which was a bit of a downer a little bit. STEIN: It felt like that was an interesting idea, that she was going to become Iris, but you can’t leave the theater on that note, I don’t think. Yet another evolution along the way that I very much understand.
Will This Duo Return for More ‘Final Destination’?

“Everything we could think of is in this film.”

Image via Warner Bros.

This feels like an unfair question because I don’t want to box you into just making Final Destination movies for the rest of your life, but I am also a greedy franchise fan, so I must ask you – if the opportunity presented itself, would you want to make another? LIPOVSKY: We’ve been debating that ourselves in that, honestly, at this moment, we put every idea that we possibly could think of into this movie. Every anxiety we could think of that would make for a great set piece, every small detail, every big callback that we wanted to do, every Easter egg. Everything we could think of is in this film. I’m sure with some time, new ideas will percolate. This one, with the bloodlines thing, it just allowed it to be so fresh, do the premonition in a different way, found a really great way of invigorating the character work, and it demanded to be made. We wouldn’t want to make another one unless it demanded to be made and we had another two hours of insanity to give people. I’m sure that can be done, but currently it’s a bit of a head-scratcher to figure out how, but it’ll take some time.

Image via Warner Bros.

I’ll end with the same question that I posed to Craig [Perry] the other day. I have a lot of feelings about this, but I feel like it’s different coming from folks who actually made one of these movies. Do you think the possibilities are endless with the Final Destination concept? Could we get these movies forever? STEIN: Oh, yeah. One of my favorite things is the pitches that have been online, people coming up with, like, “You could do Final Destination on a pirate ship in the 1500s. You could do Final Destination on a spaceship,” with the Star Trek crossover. Those kinds of things are really fun to imagine. I think part of what is a hallmark of Final Destination is that it’s an everyday world in the suburbs of middle America or whatever. So, that’s a bit of a wild stretch, but it’s fun to think about. LIPOVSKY: My favorite Reddit idea was that an asteroid is coming to Earth and NASA deflects it, saving the entire planet that was marked for death. So now, literally everyone on the planet is marked for death at the exact same moment. You could just imagine the Roland Emmerich version that. STEIN: That would totally be ending a franchise right there. LIPOVSKY: Everyone on the corner, every street, every house, all at the same time, everywhere on the planet. Did you guys see Smile 2? That’s upping it! STEIN: Well, they are making Smile 3. It’s an exponential increase. I was talking to Craig about that concept trailer teaser for Dark Ages. That’s something that I would love to see, also. LIPOVSKY: We always say Death’s work is never done. There’s always going to be people for Death to go for. I’m sure they’ll figure out a way. It also depends on if people go to the theater and buy tickets to Final Destination Bloodlines.

Related

‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Secures the Franchise’s Highest Rotten Tomatoes Score By a Landslide

The deadly franchise has been successfully resurrected.

I don’t think you’re going to have a problem with that. I had all the faith in the world in you guys and the entire team, but the final film just so far exceeded my expectations with a super smart, funny, scary Final Destination movie that also has brilliant additions to the lore, which is not easy to do in any horror franchise, or any franchise at all in any genre for that matter, so, thank you and congratulations! STEIN: You’re our litmus test, Perri, so it means so much that you enjoy the movie. LIPOVSKY: Thank you. We knew you’re a fan. The whole time we were making it, we’re like, “We have to make sure this passes the Perri Test.” Final Destination Bloodlines is in theaters now.

Final Destination Bloodlines

Release Date

May 16, 2025

Runtime

109 Minutes

Director

Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein

Writers

Lori Evans Taylor, Guy Busick, Jeffrey Reddick, Jon Watts

Producers

Craig Perry, Jon Watts, Dianne McGunigle

Kaitlyn Santa Juana

Stephanie Lewis

Teo Briones

Charlie Lewis