Final Destination

Overview

In the original Final Destination, high school student Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) boards Volee Airlines Flight 180 with his classmates for a field trip to Paris, France. Before take-off, Alex has a premonition that the plane will explode in mid-air, killing everyone on board. When the events from his vision begin to repeat themselves in reality, he panics, and a fight breaks out, which leads to several passengers being left behind, including Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), Carter Horton (Kerr Smith), Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott), Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke), Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer), and Tod Waggner (Chad Donella), who witness the plane explode moments later. Afterwards, the survivors begin to die one by one through a series of bizarre accidents, and Alex attempts to find a way to "cheat" Death's plan before it is too late. Six months later, Alex, Clear, and Carter travel to Paris to celebrate their survival, believing they have finally cheated Death; however, after Carter is crushed by a giant neon sign, they realize that Death's plan is still in action.^[2]

Final Destination 2, picking up one year after the first film, features college student Kimberly Corman (A. J. Cook) heading to Daytona Beach for spring break with her friends Shaina, Dano, and Frankie (Sarah Carter, Alex Rae, and Shaun Sipos). En route, Kimberly has a premonition of a huge car pile-up on Route 23, killing everyone involved. She stalls her SUV on the entrance ramp, preventing several people from entering the highway, including state trooper Thomas Burke (Michael Landes), Eugene Dix (T.C. Carson), Rory Peters (Jonathan Cherry), Kat Jennings (Keegan Connor Tracy), Nora and Tim Carpenter (Lynda Boyd and James Kirk), Evan Lewis (David Paetkau), and pregnant Isabella Hudson (Justina Machado). While Officer Burke questions Kimberly, the pile-up occurs as she predicted. In the days following the accident, the survivors begin to die one by one in a series of bizarre accidents. After learning about the explosion of Flight 180, Kimberly teams up with Clear Rivers, the only survivor of Flight 180, to try to save a new group of people from Death. This time the survivors are told that only "new life" can defeat Death, and they must stay alive long enough for Isabella to have her baby. It is later revealed that Isabella was never meant to die in the pile-up, and Kimberly drowns herself in a lake so that she can be resuscitated by emergency staff, thus granting her "new life"; saving her and Officer Burke.^[3]

Final Destination 3, set five years after^{[note 1]} the explosion of Flight 180 and four years after the pile-up on Route 23, has high school student Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) visiting an amusement park for grad night with her friends Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman), Jason Wise (Jesse Moss), and Carrie Dreyer (Gina Holden). As Wendy and her friends board the Devil's Flight roller coaster, Wendy has a premonition that the ride will crash, killing everyone on board. When Wendy panics a fight breaks out and several people leave or are forced off the ride before the accident occurs, including Kevin, Wendy's younger sister Julie (Amanda Crew), Ian McKinley (Kris Lemche), Perry Malinowski (Maggie Ma), Erin Ulmer (Alexz Johnson), Lewis Romero (Texas Battle), Frankie Cheeks (Sam Easton), and Ashley Freund and Ashlyn Halperin (Chelan Simmons and Crystal Lowe). When the survivors start to die one by one in a series of strange accidents, Wendy and Kevin set out to save those who remain after they learn of the events of the first two films. Most of their attempts are futile, with the exception of Julie and themselves, leading them to believe they have cheated Death. However, the three "coincidentally" cross paths five months later and are caught in a horrifying subway accident.^[4]

In The Final Destination, college student Nick O'Bannon (Bobby Campo) visits the McKinley Speedway for a study break with his friends Lori Milligan, Janet Cunningham, and Hunt Wynorski. While watching the race, Nick has a premonition that a race car crash will send debris into the stands, causing the stadium to collapse on the guests. When Nick panics a fight breaks out and several people leave before the accident occurs, including, his friends Lori (Shantel VanSanten), Janet (Haley Webb), and Hunt (Nick Zano), security guard George Lanter (Mykelti Williamson), and spectators Jonathan Groves (Jackson Walker), Andy Kewzer (Andrew Fiscella), Samantha Lane (Krista Allen), Carter Daniels (Justin Welborn), and Nadia Monroy (Stephanie Honoré). Once again, the survivors are killed in a series of strange accidents except for Janet, who is rescued just moments before her death. This leads the remaining survivors to believe that they have cheated Death, until Nick has another premonition of a disastrous explosion at a shopping mall, which he manages to prevent, saving himself, Lori, and Janet. Two weeks later, Nick realizes the mall disaster vision was only meant to lead them to where Death needed them to be and all three are killed by a runaway semi.^[5]

In Final Destination 5, Sam Lawton (Nicholas D'Agosto) is on his way to a corporate retreat with his colleagues. While they cross the North Bay Bridge, Sam has a premonition that the bridge will collapse, killing everyone on it. Sam manages to persuade several of his co-workers to get off the bridge before the accident occurs, including Molly Harper (Emma Bell), Nathan Sears (Arlen Escarpeta), Peter Friedkin (Miles Fisher), Dennis Lapman (David Koechner), Olivia Castle (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood), Isaac Palmer (P. J. Byrne), and Candice Hooper (Ellen Wroe). After Candice and Isaac die in bizarre accidents, Sam is warned that Death is still after the survivors and told that if he wants to live he must kill someone who was never meant to die on the bridge, and claim their remaining lifespan. Olivia and Dennis are killed before they have a chance to save themselves, but Nathan claims the lifespan of a co-worker when he accidentally causes his death in a warehouse accident. Peter attempts to kill Molly, jealous that she survived instead of Candice. He eventually gains the lifespan of an investigating agent, but is killed by Sam before he can kill Molly. Sam and Molly later board a plane to Paris, which is later revealed to be Flight 180 from the first film. Unable to get off the plane, both are killed in the resulting explosion. The landing gear is sent flying towards New York City and crashes into a cocktail bar, killing Nathan, since the co-worker whose life he claimed had a terminal illness and was due to die "any day now".^[6]

Development

Final Destination was written by Jeffrey Reddick after having "read a story about a woman who was on vacation and her mom called her and said, 'Don’t take the flight tomorrow, I have a really bad feeling about it.'". The woman switched flights and the plane she was originally supposed to take crashed. Originally having written the script as an episode of The X Files, Reddick decided to turn the script into a feature-length film at the behest of one of his New Line Cinema colleagues. After reading his spec script, New Line Cinema hired Reddick to write the screenplay; James Wong and Glen Morgan were later brought on board to help with the script, making alterations to comply with their standards.^[7]

Box office

Final Destination, when compared to other top-grossing American horror franchises—A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Hannibal Lecter, Psycho, Saw, Scream and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre—and adjusting for the 2011 inflation^[8] is the tenth highest grossing horror franchise in the United States at approximately $347.8 million.^[9]

Critical response

The Final Destination films, overall, have received a mixed reception from critics. The first three films received mixed reviews, while the fourth one got mostly negative reviews. The fifth film however got mostly positive reviews. The franchise has been praised for its innovative concept of Death killing people, instead of a usual slasher killer; the death sequences have also been praised for their creativity.^[17]

Future

In early 2011, Tony Todd said in an interview with Dread Central that if Final Destination 5 was a success at the box office, then two sequels would be filmed back-to-back.^[18] On August 23, 2011, when asked whether he would be directing a sequel, Steven Quale elaborated, "Who knows. Never say never. I mean, it'll be up to the fans. We'll see how this one performs internationally, and if it makes as much money as the fourth one, I'm sure Warner Brothers will want to make another one."^[19]

Novels

Throughout 2005, publishing company Black Flame released a series of Final Destination books which faithfully follow the premise of the films, with each involving a group of people who find themselves targeted by Death after surviving a catastrophe of some sort due to a character experiencing a precognitive vision. Their first five novels all featured original stories, with the first novel, entitled Dead Reckoning, has punk rocker Jessica Golden saving herself and several others from the collapse of Club Kitty in Los Angeles, earning Death's ire.^[20] Destination Zero, also set in LA, has magazine employee Patricia Fuller and few others survive a train bombing and afterward, while being stalked by Death, Patti learns this is not the first time her family has been hunted by the entity.^[21] End of the Line has a group of New York City subway crash survivors, led by twins Danny and Louise King, trying to escape Death, who uses an unknowing agent to hasten its acquisition of the survivors.^[22] In Dead Man's Hand a group meant to die in the crash of a Las Vegas glass elevator are stalked by both Death and the FBI, the latter believing the group's savior Allie Goodwin-Gaines was responsible for the elevator crash.^[23] Looks Could Kill has beautiful New York model Stephanie "Sherry" Pulaski stopping her friends from boarding a yacht when she has a vision of it exploding, but is left horribly disfigured and comatose by flying debris moments afterward when her vision comes true; eventually awakening the embittered Stephanie makes a deal with Death, aiding it in claiming her friends in exchange for having her good looks restored.^[24]

After the run of the original series of books Black Flame released novelizations of the first three films in January 2006.^[25][26][27] Black Flame's last Final Destination novel was Death of the Senses released in mid-2006. Taking place in New York the book has a homeless man named Jack Curtis saving policewoman Amy Tom from a maniac after having a vision of Amy's death; Amy's attacker is later revealed to be a serial killer who was meant to murder six other people (representing the first five senses and a sixth) who Death begins targeting as Jack and Amy rush to find and warn the intended victims.^[28] It was, due to a printing error, only available for a short period of time before being recalled, leaving only a few copies in circulation. A tenth novel, titled Wipeout and written by Alex Johnson, was planned, but cancelled; the book would have featured a pair of surfers and several others, after surviving a plane crash in Hawaii, being hunted by Death and the survivor of another disaster, an unstable soldier who had nearly died in an ambush in Afghanistan.^[29]

Comic books

The first Final Destination comic book, titled Sacrifice, was published by Zenescope Entertainment and came packaged with a limited-edition DVD of Final Destination 3, sold exclusively at Circuit City stores. The premise of the story involves the survivor of a terrible accident and his friend Jim, who continually experiences images of other people's deaths, isolating himself from the rest of the world to escape the visions that torment him.^[30] Zenescope later released a five-issue miniseries, titled Final Destination: Spring Break, which involves a group led by Carly Hagan being stalked by Death after surviving a hotel fire and becoming stranded in Cancún, Mexico. The miniseries was later released in a trade paperback collection, which included the Sacrifice comic as bonus content.^[31]