[This story contains mild spoilers for Final Destination Bloodlines]
They say that overnight success in Hollywood actually takes a decade, and that could be said of directing team Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein. The duo is riding high thanks to Final Destination Bloodlines, which defied expectations this weekend to land the top R-rated horror opening since the pandemic with $51.7 million domestically. The film also hit big with critics, who gave it the best reviews for a horror sequel since James Cameron’s Aliens (1986). It was all the more impressive given that this is the pair’s first studio feature, and that the franchise had been dormant since 2011.
Related Stories
Lipovsky and Stein spent the weekend taking it all in. On Friday night, they hung out with New Line boss Richard Brenner and production head Dave Neustadter at the AMC Burbank, where they surprised a few crowds with an introduction. They also snuck into a few screenings throughout the weekend and were pleased to hear audible reactions during dozens of moments in the film. They even bought themselves tickets to a 4DX screening and enjoyed the movie they’d seen hundreds of times in a new way.
They knew going into the weekend that things would be good, but they didn’t know how good. Then Warner Bros. distribution boss Jeff Goldstein called them on Sunday to inform the pair the film had crossed $100 million globally. On Monday, they got a call from Warner Bros. co-chief Michael De Luca, who praised thecraftsmanship and intelligence of the movie, and to relay that the studio is invigorated by their revival of the franchise.
This seemingly overnight success came after years of Lipovsky and Stein dreaming of making a big studio movie. The pair cut their teeth helming Disney TV shows, and in their off hours, they poured years of their lives into the low-budget cult superhero hit Freaks, which bowed to rave reviews in 2019 and was a hot acquisition title of the Toronto International Film Festival. The momentum from Freaks allowed them to leave their day jobs in TV, and from there multiple studios hired them to develop various projects that didn’t come to fruition. They even sold a Freaks TV show to TNT never happened.
They got to know the team at New Line a few years ago while toying another project, and learned the studio was looking to make a sixth Final Destination with a take from producer Jon Watts, who wanted to center the story on a family.
Over a period of months they vied for the job, finally landed it thanks to a now-famous Zoom pitch in which one of them appeared to die in Final Destination form.
Unlike the characters marked for death in a Final Destination film, this sixth installment in the franchise just felt fated to live, overcoming obstacle after obstacle that might have killed other movies. Now that Lipovsky and Stein have achieved their dream of becoming bona fide blockbuster directors, they shared with The Hollywood Reporter how it all happened.
After months of pitching, you finally landed the job to direct Bloodlines. But nothing is certain in Hollywood. Did you have time to celebrate?
ADAM B. STEIN We were pretty over the moon, but also there was a lot of uncertainty around whether it would be greenlit. It almost felt like the process of making this movie was a bit like avoiding a Final Destination Rube Goldberg, because there were so many obstacles that were dodged along the way where we thought maybe the movie wouldn’t even happen. But it just kept going. There were regime changes at Warner Bros. It originally was going to be made for HBO Max, and then that strategy changed and then they moved it over to theatrical. And then as we were moving forward, there were the strikes, and we were right in the middle of that.
ZACH LIPOVSKY We were a week away from shooting when the actors went on strike. We had massive sets built and all sorts of crazy stuff ready to go and then had to shut it all down.
So the studio had to pay to store the sets etc., which means either the budget goes up — or more likely, the studio subtracts those delay costs from your budget.
STEIN Doing Freaks and having produced a movie at a really tiny budget gave us lots of tools for figuring out how to make the most of the money that we had. And when there were budget crunches like that, we were able to work with the team to figure out how to get all the money on screen.
With Freaks, you had no margin for error, so you started “testing” the movie during the script phase, where you’d invite friends and family over for pizza to read the script and share their thoughts. Was there an equivalent of that on Final Destination?
LIPOVSKY We actually did do that quite heavily on Final Destination with New Line’s blessing. We took a lot of the ideas that we developed with Freaks into Final Destination, especially with how intricate some of these set pieces are, where we did script readings all the way through development. We did some pre-vis, which we kept showing to people in the crew and things like that. And then during the editing process, we would show the movie to a small group with pizza, basically every two weeks. And then with New Line’s help, we did several larger friends and family screenings of a hundred people at a time.
STEIN When it came to do additional photography, we were very surgical with what we knew would improve the movie, that we could take something that was already testing really well and then really take it to the next level.
So, that opening. You spent about half of your shooting days on it?
STEIN About half the days.
LIPOVSKY Whenever we had production meetings, we’d start at the beginning of the script. By the time we were done talking about the opening, the meeting would be over and then we’d have to have another production meeting for the rest of the movie. And that would always be the case.
STEIN We built this enormous set on stage. It was 110 feet across. This circular restaurant that was then surrounded by a custom Volume wall for the view. That was only one of the — I think it’s five or six sets — that made up the Skyview sequence. We had separate sets for when the set was tilted and a separate one that people could fall out of and a separate one that she’s hanging on at the end.
Your no-budget indie Freaks had a number of actors people know — Emile Hirsch and Bruce Dern. And with your first studio movie, you got to play with a cast that folks mostly don’t know.
LIPOVSKY Not only did we have to find this whole cast of amazing actors, but they had to work in a way where it seemed like they had the chemistry of having been related for a very long time. And we wanted to play a lot with the structure of Final Destination, where in the past films, characters are known as being kind of stereotypical or one dimensional and then they die, which allows you to kind of hate them so that you enjoy their death. In this case, we wanted a lot of the characters to start in that place, but then you would discover that there was all these other layers to them that you didn’t expect.
STEIN [Producer] Jon Watts deserves a lot of credit for coming up with that initial concept, but also shepherding the heart of the movie. His Spider-Man movies are sort of known for having all the spectacle and fun of Spider-Man, but also retaining a particular vision of heart and character-driven comedy. And that was an influence that he had on this film. All throughout the process, he was pitching jokes. Paco the Turtle was his idea.
Paco was great, and there was the excellent line from Erik about realizing why his neighbor was always asking to play catch.
STEIN We had amazing writers on this movie, but we still always love to take an opportunity to unleash the actors with improv. We get the movie as scripted, but then would say, “OK, on this next one, do whatever you want, improvise, say new things.” 90 percent of what happens in those is not usable, but then the 10 percent can work. And for that moment with Richard Harmon, who plays Erik, who’s an incredible improviser, we asked him to leave the room and every time say something different about Jerry Fenbury. There were so many good takes. It was really hard to choose.
You guys are quite methodical. So did you have a spreadsheet of every Final Destination sequence and break it down like a mathematical formula?
ZACH LIPOVSKY We went back through all the previous Final Destination movies, broke down every different type of Final Destination death. How they worked, which ones worked well, which ones didn’t, how many omens were part of each one, how much the audience knew the person was going to die or not, how many twists there were. We graphed all that stuff out. There’s all these different ways that a Final Destination set piece works separate from the opening set pieces. There are ones we called “escape deaths,” where the character knows that they’re marked for death but they’re trapped and they can’t get out. There’s ones where they’re completely oblivious, where the audience knows death’s coming for them, but the character does not. There’s ones called “bus hits,” where neither the audience nor the character knows, and it just comes out of nowhere.
STEIN Zach’s spreadsheet was definitely something to behold.
The scene with the late Tony Todd was very resonant. How aware were you of his situation when you guys were working on that together?
ZACH LIPOVSKY He had been ill for quite a while, so the whole time making the movie, we knew he was sick. As we were getting closer to filming the movie, it was clear that he was well enough to be in the film, but that it was very likely his last Final Destination movie. We knew his mortality would be a big part of the story and he was a big part of crafting that narrative. He was very, very eager to be in the movie. He was so excited once he was on set. And when you look at the other Final Destinations movies, his character is very mysterious. He kind of comes in for these scenes. He has no backstory.
The audience has been clamoring for answers as to who this character is. We really wanted to give him more of an origin story, give a lot more to why he’s been doing all the things he’s been doing, but then also work with him carefully to give him an ending as well and give him a goodbye.
It was an incredibly unique and special situation where not only narratively did his character make sense to be commenting on mortality and his own mortality, but to give an actor an opportunity to speak to the audience about mortality and kind of what it’s all about — and say goodbye. It was a great responsibility for all of us that were there. And he was a huge partner in that.
In the final moment of the scene that he’s in, we actually told him to throw away the script for a minute and just speak from the heart about what is it all about, because it’s something he’s living through. And the final take that’s in the movie is his take of just saying, “life is precious, enjoy every single minute.” That just came straight out of him. And then he kind of winks and smiles and says, “good luck” and does his classic charm and walks away. That that was a pretty incredible moment to witness on set.
It would go largely against franchise precedent, but did you ever consider letting your main characters live? I actually thought it had worked out for them.
LIPOVSKY Most of the films end with the heroes not escaping, but it’s a very tricky thing to pull off. Final Destination in general is a very difficult type of movie to make, because the structure is so well established. Finding a way to make the films feel surprising, even though the audience feels like they know exactly what’s going to happen. It was one of our biggest challenges. So it was great to hear that was surprising to you. We kept trying to kind of zig and zag so that people wouldn’t know what was going to happen.
And it the ending didn’t leave me depressed. I didn’t quite know how to feel but perhaps it was almost uncomfortably funny.
STEIN That’s what makes this movie special, I think, is that it’s supposed to be fun. We always said we wanted to make a movie where the audience is watching from behind their fingers. They can’t bear to watch the screen, but they’re still smiling and laughing at the same time.
Do you have thoughts on what you’ll do nexts? I imagine you have some projects you are hoping to do next?
STEIN We just love making movies, so anytime we get to make a movie is an exciting experience for us. The best thing about it is seeing it with an audience. The audience reaction in the theater is just so much fun. We love to sit in the back of the theater and hear the little rumblings of suspense as it ripples through the theater.
