Here’s some awesome news to end the week with: eleven years after the release of Final Destination 5, a new sequel is almost ready to head into production – and Final Destination 6 has just found its directors! The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that the new sequel, which is expected to be released through the HBO Max streaming service, is going to be directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein.
The duo of Lipovsky and Stein previously directed the 2018 film Freaks (starring Emile Hirsch and Bruce Dern) and the 2019 live-action Kim Possible movie. Lipovsky also directed Dead Rising: Watchtower and Leprechaun: Origins on his own… but I’ll try not to hold that Leprechaun movie against him.
Jon Watts, director of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far from Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, is producing Final Destination 6 with Dianne McGunigle, Sheila Hanahan Taylor, and Final Destination franchise producer Craig Perry. Lori Evans Taylor is writing the script with Guy Busick, co-writer of the new Scream movies, and they’re working from a story and treatment that was written by Watts. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but The Hollywood Reporter assures that “the core concept remains”: A character has a premonition of a horrific and deadly event, cheats his or her own death, and saves several other lives in the process, only to have Death, as a personified but unstoppable force, come for the survivors one by one.
The Final Destination 6 director search took up most of the year, with agencies and management firms submitting over two hundred candidates. According to The Hollywood Reporter’s sources, “Lipovsky and Stein rose to the top through their ideas and passion for the Final Destination brand.”
The duo were already in line to get the gig when one final Zoom pitch meeting became what some in Hollywood called “The Zoom call to end all Zoom calls”. The duo made their pitch to New Line execs and producer together, with a burning fireplace behind them. As they wrapped up the meeting, the fire came alive and the mantle began burning. The filmmakers stopped and after a tense moment, quickly extinguished the flames. As they sat down, everyone relieved the accident had passed, a wrenching creak was heard and suddenly, the whizzing ceiling fan broke off and flew down, decapitating one of the filmmakers. The execs and producers went from concern to all-out laughter. The bit, using a combination of pre-recorded footage and visual effects, had transitioned seamlessly and showed their unabashed enthusiasm. It was, to all involved, the cherry on top.
I love the Final Destination franchise and we’re way overdue for another sequel, so I’m really looking forward to Final Destination 6. I can’t wait to see what Lipovsky, Stein, and Watts are bringing to the series.
Are you looking forward to Final Destination 6? What do you think of the choice of directors? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
