The Final Destination, as the fourth film in the series, was meant to be the last. Even that was probably too much. Final Destination 3 would have been the right place to stop. But they made another one and, even though it may be one of the worst horror movies ever made, that fourth film made more than $200 million dollars. It was the beginning of the end to audience common sense.
The Final Destination was the first in our current wave of movies which are in 3D for no reason and it was the first evidence we had that audiences will literally watch anything, no matter how absolutely shitty, if you force them to wear silly glasses. Yet even that doesn’t fully explain The Final Destination as the film also did well in places without 3D screens. Whatever the reason, it made so much money without being good that New Line Cinema can’t resist doing another one. They have a license to print money with this franchise, and you can’t really blame them.
So NY Mag says New Line is hard at work pushing forward with Final Destination 5. They’re looking for a director and, since it doesn’t matter if the movie’s any good, it sounds like they’re looking for a really cheap director. The leading candidates are all people who’ve only directed commercials or served as second unit and visual effects directors on other movies. Clearly you don’t need Spielberg to make money off a Final Destination. Literally anyone will do.
Eric Heisserer, who wrote the nearly as bad as The Final Destination Nightmare on Elm Street reboot, has already turned in his Final Destination 5 script. No word on what it contains, but in the last movie they were so out of ideas the premise centered around cheating death at a NASCAR event. Previous incarnations involved teenagers escaping death by some more commonly feared (and thus far more terrifying) end and then paying the price for it as death came calling and tried to take back the lives they owed it. The first three movies were genuinely creative, featuring a visually memorable plane crash, car wreck, and even a massive roller coaster disaster. But the third one had death by NASCAR which is about as out of ideas as it gets, though I suspect it catered well to the movie’s primary demographic. What’s left for the fourth one? I’m betting death by Blue Collar Comedy.
