ZingB

The Big Picture

• Jeffrey Reddick assures fans, Final Destination 6 is ready to go once the current strikes are resolved.
• He also praises the new additions to team Final Destination including producer Jon Watts and screenwriter Guy Busick.
• Reddick promises. "It's gonna be well worth the wait."

There’s been talk of a sixth Final Destination film for quite some time now. Final Destination 5 hit theaters back in 2011 and went on to earn about $158 million at the global box office on a reported $40 million production budget. Before that movie even came out, Tony Todd mentioned plans to film a sixth and seventh installment back-to-back. Then, years later in 2019, the reports shifted to calling film six a franchise reboot. (A terrible idea given the consistent quality of the existing films.)

The next update came in January 2022 when it was announced that Final Destination 6 would debut on HBO Max and Spider-Man: Homecoming, Far From Home, and No Way Home director Jon Watts was boarding the project as a producer alongside franchise producers Craig Perry and Sheila Hanahan Taylor. Watts was also credited with developing the treatment for the film with screenplay duties going to Lori Evans Taylor and Guy Busick.

The Final Destination 6 roster got even stronger from there. In September 2022 news broke that the directing duo behind the exceptionally well-made low-budget sci-fi thriller Freaks, Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, would helm the new film. The trouble is, minus a mention at CinemaCon this year, there hasn’t been much movement on the project since, and now we know for sure that there won’t be until the AMPTP comes to their senses and offers striking actors and writers a fair deal. While we eagerly await progress on that front, Final Destination creator Jeffrey Reddick did offer hope that once the strikes are resolved, Final Destination 6 is ready to move forward.

While making the rounds promoting his latest project as producer, Til Death Do Us Part in theaters on August 4th, he did indulge my Final Destination obsession and included an update on the status of the new film.

“There is a sixth one that’s planned the minute, again, the AMPTP comes back to the table, that movie is ready to go. It's just nice as a genre fan to have something created that has become a part of the public zeitgeist. Again, I couldn't have asked for more.”

After expressing my own enthusiasm for Lipovsky and Stein helming the project and suggesting it’s destined to be “a winner,” Reddick jumped in to sing the praises of the Final Destination 6 team and express appreciation for their insistence on getting his take on what’s vital to creating a successful Final Destination story:

“We're gonna get a winner, and also I spoke to Guy Busick, he did the Scream reboot, and [Lori] is his writing partner, and they were so gracious because they actually – I'm friends with Craig Perry to this day. We're really tight. [He] produced it, and he's like, 'They called me.' They wanted to talk to me about the first film and the second film, about what my thoughts were on what makes a Final Destination film – kind of the key elements that are crucial to me. It's just really nice because you don't get that a lot. I'm friends with Eric Bress, who wrote part two. You become friends a lot of times with people just crossing paths, and Eric [Heisserer] who wrote part five is amazing. But it's nice when the filmmakers actually call you and are like, ‘We wanna make sure that we get the essence of what's important to you and what you think makes these Final Destination s, what you found connects with the fans.’ So, they have gone into the story with the best heart.”

Of course, Reddick couldn’t reveal any specifics about the new story or the death scenes they’ve got cooking, but he did tease that everything he’s heard from Perry and co. “makes me smile.”

“And then Jon Watts who was behind the new Spider-Man movies came up with a story. I mean, I was just like, ‘This is the fucking A-team!’ [Laughs] Craig will tell me stuff, and I can't repeat it obviously because I'm very good at that because I know I don't wanna spoil anything, but every time that I've heard anything that they're doing, or any scene that they're doing or planning, it just makes me smile. The fans are gonna be – it's gonna be well worth the wait.”

Looking for even more from Reddick on his run with the Final Destination franchise and his experience making Til Death Do Us Part? Be sure to check out our full 39-minute conversation in the video below:

ncG1vNJzZmibn6G5qrDEq2Wcp51ks6q6wKVknZ2jqbavrdOipqdlZmLCsbDArZxmopWbs7Ox2GapnpyUnrCsecKopKadnqnAcA%3D%3D