Final Destination is the movie series that made you suspicious of even the most innocent household objects.
From sunbeds to tires to airbags to humble gym equipment, the Final Destination series has revelled in elaborate, unexpected deaths – and it all started 20 years ago with the release of the first movie.
To mark the 20th anniversary of one of the best horror series of the century, we rounded up some of the key players behind the first movie to discuss how it all came about, the legacy of the franchise and what the future holds.
ORIGINS
Final Destination began life as a spec television script that Jeffrey Reddick wrote for an episode of The X-Files, but New Line saw the potential of its original idea as a feature film.
Working with producers Craig Perry and Warren Zide, Reddick turned the idea into a 12-page feature treatment that New Line then bought. He wrote the first draft of the script before Glen Morgan and James Wong came on board to work on another draft, with Wong directing.
Craig Perry (producer): "I first heard of it when my old partner faxed a three-page outline of the feature idea to the hotel I was staying at for the weekend in San Francisco.
"I responded very strongly to it, and when I got back to Los Angeles we sat down with Jeffrey to turn the outline into a full treatment. That's what New Line bought and that's what Jeffrey based his feature script on."
Jeffrey Reddick (creator): "It changed a lot from the treatment. In The X-Files script, it was Scully's brother that had the premonition that got them off the plane, and then the people who got off the plane were being murdered and he was the prime suspect.
![Seann William Scott Stars In New Line Cinema's Supernatural Thriller"Final Destination"](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/gettyimages-51091008-1583845110.jpg?resize=980:* "Seann William Scott Stars In New Line Cinema's Supernatural Thriller"Final Destination"")
"The twist at the end was that there was a sheriff – who had helped them investigate the case – who had died in the line of duty at the same time the plane went down, so Death took over him and had him going out and cleaning up the mess, killing the people he had missed.
"In the treatment, they were all adult characters that got off the plane, except for Alex, he was in his early 20s. But when we were developing it with New Line, Scream came out and teenagers were hot again in horror, so they were like, 'Why don't we make them all teenagers?' And instead of Death taking over somebody and killing them, we had Death as this force that was killing them off."
Craig Perry (producer): "We were looking for a writer/director to give the movie an auteur feeling, but when we first approached Glen Morgan and James Wong, they weren't available. And everyone else we met with just wasn't the right fit.
"After nearly a year of trying to find someone, out of the blue, Morgan and Wong approached us and asked, 'We've never forgotten that idea, is it still available? Because now we are'. It says a lot that the team most known for their work on The X-Files gravitated towards a movie that began as an idea for the show.
"So in many ways, Final Destination happened for all the right reasons. Everything came together in the right way, at the right time, with the right people."
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Tony Todd (William Bludworth): "I love to work. So whenever somebody sends me something, I have to take a good look at it. I don't think I was first choice. I think it was offered to someone else. And they passed and I got it and I became part of the franchise.
"I worked on The X-Files and I knew Glen Morgan, who had written a pilot that I had tested for called The Adventures of Black Jack Savage. So there was a connection there, a connection to The X-Files history, and then all of a sudden they were doing the movie."
Jeffrey Reddick (creator): "I'm a big fan of Nightmare on Elm Street, so in my original script, Death screwed up the first time it didn't get them, so it was basically tormenting the kids in a very Nightmare on Elm Street kind of way, so the kids would commit suicide, which was kind of dark.
"I think that the biggest change that James and Glen made was to add the Rube Goldberg aspect which I think actually works better. It makes Death more universal and you don't have to project any cultural type of identity to death. It also played on the fact that everything around you could literally kill you. It was definitely for the best."
Craig Perry (producer): "The debate initially was, how do you represent Death visually? Morgan and Wong took it to a different place and said, 'Well, what if Death was an invisible force?'"
Jeffrey Reddick (creator): "The biggest challenge was the studio could not get their head around the fact that Death was the killer. There's always a killer you can see or there's a killer you can fight, but this was not a killer they could fight and we're not showing a killer."
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Craig Perry (producer): "Despite Morgan and Wong's approach, the studio was concerned. They wanted something to visually represent what was attacking you, or what you saw when you were about to die. In the movie where you see that dark shadow moving through the scene, there was an extension of that presence. People would look at their image in reflective surfaces and then see their own face melting and turning into a skull.
"The deeper we got into production, however, the less money we had. And ultimately, that idea was something we couldn't pursue. I think it's safe to say that had we gone in that direction, you and I would not be talking right now!
"That specific notion – that Death is an invisible force – is, I think, the thing that has allowed this franchise to continue for twenty years. It's allowed it to travel worldwide because every country, every culture, and every religion has a particular notion about life, death, fate and destiny. By not having Death visually personified, they could superimpose what was specific to their culture onto the story, and make it their own."
FILMING
Casting the movie came down to "economics", according to Craig Perry, with actors who would appeal to the movie's target demographic.
The unfortunate teenagers targeted by Death include Devon Sawa's Alex, Ali Larter's Clear, Seann William Scott's Billy, Kerr Smith's Carter and Chad Donella's Tod, with horror icon Tony Todd (star of Candyman) as the mysterious coroner William Bludworth.
Filming took place in New York, Vancouver, Toronto and San Francisco.
Craig Perry (producer): "New Line felt there was just enough teen interest in the likes of Devon Sawa, because of Casper, and Kerr Smith, because of Dawson's Creek, to tap into the sort of demographic we hoped would see the movie. The people cast after that were just strong actors and actresses that we felt were right for the roles.
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"The only outlier was actually Seann William Scott. We had finished American Pie when we were prepping Final Destination, but it hadn’t been released yet. We knew that once Pie came out, he was going to be a big star and we'd benefit from his presence in the movie. He's obviously lovely to work with and great in the role, but that particular bit of casting was calculated to capitalise on American Pie's eventual success."
Chad Donella (Tod Waggner): "They reconstructed the aeroplane inside of a soundstage and they put the whole thing on hydraulics. We were all in this huge remote-controlled centrifuge of an aeroplane for a few weeks, which they'd move it around with joysticks whenever they needed, which was pretty cool."
Craig Perry (producer): "When I saw the scope and size of that 10,000 pound iron gimbal with one third of a jet plane built on top of it, I thought to myself, 'Wait a second, this is what we're making? Holy shit.'
"And when you got inside the body of the plane and they sealed the cabin for shooting, you truly felt like you were on an aeroplane. There was no point of reference outside. All you knew was that you were in a plane cabin and it was moving. It was incredibly disconcerting."
Kerr Smith (Carter Horton): "My biggest memory would have been the train sequence [where Carter narrowly avoids death]. One of the trains was set to ram into my car that was already cut in half – although you couldn't tell – so that it would split apart when it got hit by the oncoming train. The other train was used for the actual dialogue.
"Since in the movie I was trapped in the car which was on the track, we used this ingenious idea to build a structure to the side of the track which had a series of mirrors on it to make it appear as though the scene was taking place on the track itself. It was somewhat intense because we had one chance to get this right and the structure was very close to the passing train which was moving very quickly."
Tony Todd (Bludworth): "I was trying to avoid a trope. A lot of people think he's Death, that's the easy picture. That's not it from my point of view.
"I have a very specific reason for his being in my mind. You don't play Death, you have to be active, you have to be wanting something and that's my secret. The one thing I will say that he is not Death."
DEATHS
While the series became known for increasingly elaborate deaths, the first movie was relatively sedate by comparison.
Chad Donella's Tod has the honour of being Death's first victim in what remains one of the most horrific of the series, as he is slowly strangled to death by a shower cord. Other deaths in the first movie include impaling by kitchen knife, being hit by a bus and decapitation.
The final victim is Kerr Smith's Carter, crushed by a falling sign – although we never actually see it happen.
Chad Donella (Tod): "It's pretty gnarly. We shot that for the better part of an entire day, I remember how long it took. They reconstructed the bathroom, they had false tiles in the back that I could break and they had to keep replacing those, and they kept adding different eye contacts so the eyes got redder and redder.
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"I remember someone telling me the original cut was so long and gruesome that they had to shorten it – it was too much for people to deal with. It was a lot of fun to shoot. I remember seeing also Amanda Detmer's death scene when Terry got hit by the bus. That was a really shocking thing to watch."
Kerr Smith (Carter): "My character didn't die in the original ending. A lot of people don’t know this, but we came back up to Canada to reshoot the ending of the movie about six months after we had finished production.
"That new ending involved Carter being killed. I think the reason was that people wanted to see the 'tough jerk' get it in the end. What better way to do it then being crushed by a 1,200 pound sign in the last frame of the movie?
Craig Perry (producer): "I know people categorise these as gory movies. And yes, there are moments of spectacular gore. But I would very strongly argue that the reason these movies are effective is actually the lead up to the gore. The gore merely punctuates the sequence.
"And that's key to audience participation. These death sequences succeed through the tension generated by the audience trying to figure out the specific thing that will cause the person to die. It's also what makes them work on TV, because you don't necessarily have to show the gory part for people to be invested. This is a unique franchise in that regard."
Jeffrey Reddick (creator): "The set pieces and the way that Death gets people is fun to watch. We tried very hard to come up with scenarios that every day people find themselves in, and play on those fears."
RELEASE
Final Destination was released on March 17, 2000 in the US, grossing $10 million in its opening weekend and going on to take $53.3 million in the US. Worldwide, the first movie grossed $112.9 million off a $23 million budget.
It led to four sequels: Final Destination 2 (2003), Final Destination 3 (2006), The Final Destination (2009) and Final Destination 5 (2011). The series has taken almost $700 million worldwide at the box office to date.
20 years after the first movie and nine years since the last instalment, the Final Destination series remains a firm favourite among horror fans.
Jeffrey Reddick (creator): "It opened at number three that weekend, but it stayed and started climbing where most horror movie drop over 50% the second weekend. Our movie was becoming a word-of-mouth hit and it was amazing to see that happen from the inside. Seeing audiences connect with something you created and getting their friends to see it was really fun to see."
Craig Perry (producer): "I feel incredibly fortunate. I mean, you wouldn't call it Final Destination if you knew there was a franchise in it, right? However, we knew we had a movie that worked. We knew we had a movie that audiences would respond to.
"But every movie's a crapshoot. How many times have you seen a great movie that didn't necessarily succeed at the box office and you're like, 'Why?'. There are so many factors that play into whether a movie is a financial success that are independent of its quality and effectiveness."
Chad Donella (Tod): "I remember going to the premiere and my manager at the time goes, 'I think this thing's gonna be good'. But you really don't know until you get audiences in front of a piece and how they react, what they like about it.
"It's really cool to get fan mail and it's really cool that people are still watching it and still enjoying it. I still get people hitting me up on the street. It's always great when fans are into a film you did, especially so many years later."
Tony Todd (Bludworth): "I felt that it would be a hit because it was perfectly aligned with teenage and young audiences. It was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, although our big set pieces were always terrifying. Personally, I don't drive trucks loaded with logs.
"It's fun. It's playful. It's risky. It's like going on a rollercoaster. People are always fascinated by the looming presence of death and that's what makes horrors so popular in the first place. We all want to be scared."
Kerr Smith (Carter): "In most thriller movies, there is a physical antagonist, a killer that you can see and interact with. In our movie, that killer was intangible which made the possibility of death inevitable. You couldn't escape it.
"It gave the audience the ability to make that darkness anything they wanted it to be. It personalised the experience. I believe it's the underlying reason for the success of the franchise. Not to mention some incredibly creative people behind the scenes."
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Jeffrey Reddick (creator): "Death is really the ultimate fear that most people have, because we all die at some point, so I think the movie tapped into that universal fear that you literally can't escape death. In this movie, we put a ticking clock on it so it also taps into the idea of when is your time to die.
"You could set this concept in any country, any time, any place. The idea that we're all mortal and death is something that is always right around the corner is something that resonates with people. I love horror movies that get under your skin, but are also fun and not sadistically dark. This movie has dark moments in it, but it's all done in a fun way."
Craig Perry (producer): "I think the Final Destination franchise creates a common ground with its audience. There's not a single person on Earth who hasn't had a déjà vu moment or hasn't been driving and realised that if they angled two feet to the left instead of one foot, they'd be dead.
"I mean, there are subreddits that are just long lists of Final Destination moments people have experienced and are sharing with each other. I think that's why we've lasted as long as we have.
"We're not tied to specific characters, or a continuing story, or a particular location– we're tied to an idea that connects to everybody."
FUTURE
In January 2019, it was announced that Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan were working on a reboot of the Final Destination franchise. Craig Perry is trying to make it happen.
Jeffrey Reddick (creator): "The horror geek in me is excited when they're doing a new one, I really like those writers a lot. I've been talking to Craig and the concept behind it is unique. I think reboot is probably too strong of a word, it makes it sound like they're going to change everything, but it's definitely a Final Destination movie.
"Craig is the master of coming up with crazy openings and set pieces. He's told me a couple of things that happen in this one and it's going to be a lot of fun. It's not going feel like cash-grab Final Destination film."
Craig Perry (producer): "We're toying with having it take place in the world of first responders: EMTs, firemen and police. These people deal with death on the front lines every day, and make choices that can cause people to live or die.
"We rely on their good judgement, expertise and calm demeanour. So why not put those people in the nightmare situation where every choice can bring about life and death – but now for themselves? We're thinking that world might be an interesting way into a Final Destination movie, and one which can also generate unique set pieces in a very credible way.
"The last thing I'll say is, I don't think anybody will look at a revolving door in the same way again..."
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