The Big Picture

• Final Destination creator Jeffrey Reddick addresses recent comments that Final Destination 6 will change the formula established in previous films.
• Reddick emphasizes the importance of continuing to use the Rube Goldberg device.
• However, he does tease that Final Destination 6 will unearth a deep layer of the story.

I have a Final Destination obsession. It’s one of the franchises I credit with bolstering my appreciation for cinema and horror filmmaking, and also for inspiring me to go down this career path. I’m also a big believer that the Final Destination concept is pure genius and could sustain countless new installments without running the risk of growing stale. That being said, when franchise creator Jeffrey Reddick mentioned that Final Destination 6 “doesn't follow that kind of formula that we've kind of established,” it gave me pause. Without that formula, without “death’s design,” is it a Final Destination film anymore?

The 2000 film introduces the concept via Devon Sawa’s Alex. He broads a plane to Paris, has a premonition of it exploding midair and manages to get five classmates and one teacher off the plane before it does indeed take off and explode. The group may have escaped death at that moment, but as Tony Todd’s Bludworth explains, “In death there are no accidents, no coincidences, no mishaps, and no escapes.” Death circles back to tie up loose ends and picks off the Flight 180 survivors one by one.

The same happens in Final Destination 2 to the survivors of the Route 23 crash, in Final Destination 3 to those who got off the Devil's Flight roller coaster just in time, in The Final Destination to those who left the McKinley Speedway unharmed, and in Final Destination 5 to the survivors of the suspension bridge collapse.

Yes, you need to offer new things in order to successfully keep a long-running franchise going, but the new is essentially built into the Final Destination concept via the kills. Death’s design remains, but the disturbing ingenuity of the opening set piece and subsequent individual death scenes are more than enough to keep each installment fresh. On top of that, I fear that upending the structure of the films too much could run the risk of them not feeling like Final Destination films.

Given my (admittedly intense) reaction to Reddick saying Final Destination 6 is “not just going to be another kind of we set up a group of people, they cheat death, and then just death gets them” film, I had to ask for more information during our conversation for his new release, Til Death Do Us Part. Here’s what he said when I pressed for more regarding how far film six will veer from the story structure of past Final Destination films:

“When I say ‘steer away,’ it's not gonna – I love all the films and I think that you can't get away from the cheating death and death coming after you part of it because that's what makes it a Final Destination film. I think the Rube Goldberg device, which actually James Wong and Glenn Morgan came up with. I have to give them total props for that because I'm a huge Nightmare on Elm Street fan and my original script was very Nightmare on Elm Street-influenced, reality-bending kind of ways that death got to them.”

Reddick went on to explain that the difference between this upcoming Final Destination movie and the past installments comes down to how it adds something new to the concept. It’s not just about adding a new layer for how one might defeat death, it appears. Here’s how Reddick put it:

“This film doesn't just kind of add another layer. Usually there's a new layer every film where it's like, ‘Oh, well, this can save you or this can save you.’ This film dives into the film in such a unique way that it attacks it from a different angle so you don't feel like, ‘Oh, there's an amazing setup and then there's gonna be one wrinkle that can potentially save you all that you have to kind of make a moral choice about or do to solve it.’ There's an expansion of the universe that – I'm being so careful.”

Reddick laughed and stopped himself there for a brief moment, but then opted to add:

“There's an expansion of the world of Final Destination that I think fans are gonna be really interested in and intrigued by. When I say it doesn't add a layer, it's not just, ‘Hey, if you murder somebody in your place, you'll live.” It kind of unearths a whole deep layer to the story that kind of, yes, makes it really, really interesting.”

Lesson learned about jumping to conclusions! It seems the Final Destination filmmakers aren’t messing with death’s design itself, but rather finding a new way to add to it, or possibly, to beat it. In Final Destination 1 the characters think they can stop death by intervening, in Final Destination 2 it was all about new life defeating death, and then in 5 it was the idea that one could survive by stealing another life.

It seems as though Final Destination 6 won’t just suggest a new tactic and then show the characters attempting to use it, but rather, introduce a plot point that adds something legitimate to the mythology -- perhaps even something that could track well during rewatches of the first five installments.

While we wait to see what’s to come in Final Destination 6, be sure to catch my full chat with Reddick to learn all about his new very gory action film, Til Death Do Us Part in the video below: