How ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Went From Typical Sequel to the Franchise’s Best Installment

Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein were dying to make Final Destination Bloodlines, and we mean more seriously than you think. When the directing partners pitched their take on the film over Zoom, they created an illusion where, during the pitch, each was “killed” in a wild, Final Destination way. It was the spark that got them the job, and now their film is finally here.

That type of innovation is to be expected from the duo, who first met as contestants on the Steven Spielberg-produced reality show On the Lot. They didn’t win, but they became friends and have since been working their way up in the industry. Since then, they’ve made films in the Dead Rising and Leprechaun franchises, an excellent subtle superhero movie called Freaks, and even the Disney film Kim Possible. But now, finally, almost 20 years after meeting, Lipovsky and Stein have their first big Hollywood release. And something tells us it won’t be their last.

io9 spoke to the directors in Los Angeles last week about their long journey through Hollywood. We broke down what they were most excited about in the Final Destination franchise, what Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts had to do with it all, and, most importantly, some of the ways they took Bloodlines from a sequel that could have been easily dismissed—and turned it into what we think is the series’ best yet.

Note: There are a few minor spoilers throughout the interview, especially regarding the opening and overall themes of the movie. If you’re worried, come back after you see the film.

Germain Lussier, io9: The first time I heard about you guys was On the Lot in 2007.

Adam Stein: That’s where we met.

io9: [Laughs] Yes, that’s true. You’ve made a lot of cool stuff since then. But if you guys now could talk to those guys then and say it’ll take almost 20 years to get our first big theatrical release, what would they have said?

Stein: [Laughs] You know, it has been such a roller coaster navigating the industry. But it’s been amazing that we have gotten to do it together. It’s a really hard thing to try to become a director in Hollywood. And so to have your best friend there with you to bounce ideas off of and commiserate with along the way has really been—we’ve been so lucky to have that. But I would say for people who are out there, who are in the struggle themselves, it takes a lot of perseverance, it takes a lot of resilience.

Zack Lipovsky: But also those ups and downs are the lessons you need to learn. Like, we couldn’t have made this movie if someone had handed it to us 20 years ago. We didn’t have the wisdom or the experience that you get from things falling apart, and failures, and trying things that don’t work, and making movies that aren’t good. And all those types of things that you have to do to kind of hone your craft and get there.

io9: Tell me about the conversations you guys had when you found out this was available. I’ve heard all about the Zoom, which is so cool and I’m mad it doesn’t exist somewhere.

[Both laugh]

But tell me about even before that—like when you said, “My God, Final Destination 6, let’s pitch on it and figure it out.”

Lipovsky: Well, I think actually the first gut reaction was, “How are they gonna make another one, because the end of five is perfect.” Right? So, “Really? They’re gonna make another one? Like what could they possibly do?” And then we started to hear this idea that Jon Watts had come up with about making the movie about a family. Starting it with the origin of this family and death is coming for this bloodline. And how much that would enrich all the relationships and the stakes and all those types of things. That really made us start to lean in and go, “Okay, that’s pretty interesting.” And then from there, [we] started to work on the process of getting hired. And then, a many-year process of working with the writers and the team to just kind of bring that inherent new idea through the movie in a way to make it feel more fresh and surprising.

io9: Right, the first time I heard about this, it was like “Jon Watts is doing it.” And obviously he came up with kind of the kernel idea. But how much was actually in place when you guys came on board, and how much were you able to make it your own?

Stein: They had done one draft of the script based on Jon’s idea when we first got involved. And the core of it was there. The idea of the opening would take place with Iris, I think it was the 1950s originally? But in the past, and then flash forward to her granddaughter. That was there. The details of who each person was, what all the death scenes were, completely changed over the course of two years of us being involved. But the core thing of it being a family that was fractured, that then could come together in a way, even as death was chasing them. That got us really excited. That was present in the original.

io9: I’ll come back to some more of that soon but just as guys who are film fans, filmmakers, film nerds, what was the most exciting thing about the freedom of, presumably having your biggest budget? Besides the food. Everyone says the food.

Lipovsky: We never had time to eat food. [Laughs] I think for us, it’s working with the caliber of crew that we had. You’re suddenly working with some of the best people at their craft in the world. You have the most incredible stunt people, special effects people, makeup effects people, and incredible actors. All the toys you’ve ever wanted. You can be like, “I really need this very special lens for this one shot I want to do.” You have it. So that, as a filmmaker, is just so much fun. Now, of course, you never have enough time or money. Because as soon as you start going, “Oh we could do that too, and do this,” you max out all the ability.

Stein: You build a 120-foot set, surrounded by a volume, and light it on fire, well, that costs a lot. [All laugh.] But I think as filmmakers, the thing that we really got a kick out of is Final Destination, what makes it special as a horror franchise, is that there’s no personified villain coming for the characters. There’s no guy with a knife and a mask. What comes for the characters is the filmmaking. It’s these close-up, insert shots connected to other shots that build this mouse trap in the perfect, suspenseful way. It’s really like the directors are coming for the characters. So that was so much fun to kind of relish that experience.

io9: Speaking of the effects, just knowing you guys, I know wanted to do practical as much as you can. So talk about when you’re coming up with the death scenes, when, you know, “Okay, this is as far as we can push the practical, and then we have to kind of finish it off with digital.”

Lipovsky: Yeah, we call it “the Guillermo del Toro school of filmmaking” where you do as much as you can practically, knowing that visual effects can help with the magic trick. And then the visual effects are really removing the things that are supporting the practical element. So we have a practical body or a practical set or something like that, or even people with a whole bunch of green rods and blue screens and things around it that are making it so that that practical thing can happen right at the center of frame. And then you use the visual effects to extend the set or erase the rod or do those things so that it really becomes hard to tell at which point what’s real and what isn’t.

So there’s always something real there. And then the visual effects just kind of make it magical and kind of impossible. We try to do that whenever possible. Even there’s people falling through the dance floor and they’re falling and grabbing onto things dropping 40 feet, they’re [actually] falling through a dance floor and grabbing onto things, dropping 40 feet. But then everything around them is extended and kind of beautifully done by the visual effects team. But at the heart of it, we always just wanted something real.

Stein: To give you another example, there’s a character that gets torn apart in the opening sequence. And there was a full-size mannequin body of this person with puppeteers that rip it in pieces, but then you erase the puppeteers. But the real thing you’re looking at really happened.

io9: What sequence changed the most during either pre-production or editing as you were thinking about the balance of the practical and digital?

Lipovsky: I think one sequence that changed dramatically was what became the backyard barbecue scene, which is a really great scene. It actually started as a kids’ play place, Chuck E. Cheese-type set piece with bumper cars and bowling and all that crazy stuff. But we kind of ultimately realized that the core of these movies, especially this movie, was family, and also very relatable things. And so by making it a barbecue, you can kind of do all the things that we all have in our house, which is even more terrifying. And so it kind of changed into that.

io9: This film—almost more than the other ones, which I watched beforehand—really messes with you with the red herrings. And I love it so much. So how early do you have to think about that, to make sure you have all the coverage while editing to know that these are like 15 things that we’re going to use to mess with you?

Stein: You plan it out way before editing, in storyboards and scripting. To plant things that come back much later or to misdirect the audience. Because the main thing we wanted to do was keep it surprising. So you have a character walking backwards into a road and everyone in the audience goes, “Oh my god, oh my god,” and then [the car] misses him. So the audience kind of knows that we’re playing with them. Death is toying with the characters, just like we’re playing with the audience. Because we always wanted you to feel on the edge of your seat, like you don’t know what’s about to happen. So we had to plan that very far in advance.

We were inspired by some of the other movies—the guy in FD2 throws the spaghetti out the window, and then his house catches on fire, he almost gets his hand caught in the garbage disposal, and all this stuff happens, and he gets on the fire escape and then slips on the spaghetti. So we tried to do that kind of thing where, like, there’s something that happens with a vending machine that you kind of forget about, and then it comes back.

io9: Oh it comes back, yes it does. Another thing that I loved about this is that it takes the formula and it tweaks it in a couple of really interesting ways. One that happens early, so it’s not a huge spoiler, is we don’t get the premonition right way. So how early was that in the process that you’re like, right from the beginning we’re making this a new Final Destination?

Lipovsky: That was a designing principle which was not have the premonition working exactly the way that all the other movies had, so that fans of the franchise right away went, “Wait, this is different than I’m used to. What is going on here?” And almost worried that we’re jumping the shark or breaking the rules or doing something wrong. But then, slowly, as the movie continues on and you realize what’s going on, you realize, “Oh, this does fit within the canon. It obeys all these rules that we’ve come to love.”

But it was, like Adam was saying, it was building on that idea that as early as possible, we wanted people to not know where this was going next. And it’s really difficult with a Final Destination movie because there’s basically a formula. It’s something that you know what’s going to happen. But that makes for a boring movie. And so you have to figure out ways to still be true to it, but also keep it fresh

io9: And you guys crushed that. Another thing I loved about it is, I love lore. Star Wars, Marvel, I love all that. And here the whole thing is lore, basically, right? So how early on was it decided that all the other movies are kind of the baby of this one?

Stein: I mean, I think that was kind of a fun aspect of having this character, you know, Grandma Iris, who’s been in this cabin for decades, who’s been researching all the ways that people have died in the other movies. And it was actually inspired by FD1 how Alex in that movie, Devon Sawa’s character, traps himself in the cabin and is opening tuna cans with oven mitts because he knows death is coming. Well, we always loved that scene. And we thought, “Okay, what if you did that for decades? How would your life be? What would you know? What would you be researching?” And so Grandma Iris’s book with all the lore from all the other movies, that’s how that came together.

Lipovsky: We even put an Easter egg in there where in FD1, he says, “I see you, you fuck” to death. And then Iris says the same thing in her cabin.

io9: One thing we haven’t seen now in six movies, though, is, death always wins but something is giving them the premonition. Something is battling.

Stein: Yes. We have a theory.

io9: Okay. I would love to hear your theory but I was just wondering, is that something you think could be introduced into a future movie or would that ruin kind of the formula?

Stein: There have been lots of fan theories about some force of good that’s providing the premonition. I mean, we don’t want to piss people off and that is very valid theory.

Lipovsky: And we don’t have a canon answer, but we have theories.

Stein: Our own personal answer is that it’s death is bringing the premonitions because death, you know, he gets bored. He wants to have fun. So he does this thing, gives them enough clues that they could escape it if they’re paying attention, knowing that he’ll get them in the end in an even more fun way later.

io9: I like that and I think fans will like that. Before I finish, I have to ask about Tony Todd. The fact that he passed is obviously horrible, but having him with this role in your movie it gives it this aura and this heart that is totally unexpected. So tell me about like first shooting with him. It was like when you found out?

Lipovsky: Yeah. Well, we knew from while we were developing, we knew that he was sick. So it was developed with that in mind with him. You know, at first we were worried that he wouldn’t want to be in it or he wouldn’t be able to be in it. But he was so excited to be in the movie.

Stein: And he’s like, “Don’t write me out of this movie. I have to do this.”

Lipovsky: And we were very grateful that we could write the movie with that in mind, knowing that at the very least, this would be probably his last Final Destination movie, maybe his last movie ever. But we didn’t know that for sure. But that this would be saying goodbye to Bludworth. And that was designed from the beginning and worked very closely with him. And then even beyond that, when we shot that scene that day he was full of so much joy. It was just this electric feeling of seeing him do what he does so well.

And then when it came to doing that last moment where he says goodbye, even with all the preparation we had done, we just said, “Tony, just throw it all away and speak from the heart about what this has all been about and what’s on your mind.” And, you know, his own mortality was on his mind. And he just spoke about how precious life is and how to take advantage of it. And that’s what he had shown us all day on set. He had done that. And it really comes through on screen when he he’s just he says that.

Stein: Yeah, he’s speaking directly to the audience there. And I think takes a lot of people by surprise how much emotion they feel in that moment.

io9: It’s wonderful. Now that your first studio movie is in the books, and I hope there are many more, but what do you say the biggest lesson you guys took out of it?

Lipovsky: The biggest lesson… I think the biggest thing that we learned was just that you don’t ever want to lose that same enthusiasm you had when you started making small movies and trusting your gut on the things you think that the audience will love. And just kind of trying to ignore the studio-ness of it all and just make that movie for yourself who’s the fan and bring that to life. And hold on to that, that joy of cinema and making a movie with your friends in your backyard and just trying to do that with cooler toys and amazing actors.

Io9: One last stupid final question. The little kid at the beginning. You hate him so much.

Stein: By the way, I love the theater reaction in that moment. The first time we screened it for a test audience and we had someone jump up in their seat and pump their fits when [he dies]. So you’re on the right track. That was really fun.

io9: But since that was in the premonition, did we ever see him die again in real life?

Lipovsky: There is a there is a newspaper article on the wall and if you look for the headline, I think it says “Pickpocket hit by piano moving van.”

Final Destination Bloodlines is now in theaters.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein were dying to make Final Destination Bloodlines, and we mean more seriously than you think. When the directing partners pitched their take on the film over Zoom, they created an illusion where, during the pitch, each was “killed” in a wild, Final Destination way. It was the spark that got them the job, and now their film is finally here.

That type of innovation is to be expected from the duo, who first met as contestants on the Steven Spielberg-produced reality show On the Lot. They didn’t win, but they became friends and have since been working their way up in the industry. Since then, they’ve made films in the Dead Rising and Leprechaun franchises, an excellent subtle superhero movie called Freaks, and even the Disney film Kim Possible. But now, finally, almost 20 years after meeting, Lipovsky and Stein have their first big Hollywood release. And something tells us it won’t be their last.

io9 spoke to the directors in Los Angeles last week about their long journey through Hollywood. We broke down what they were most excited about in the Final Destination franchise, what Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts had to do with it all, and, most importantly, some of the ways they took Bloodlines from a sequel that could have been easily dismissed—and turned it into what we think is the series’ best yet.

Note: There are a few minor spoilers throughout the interview, especially regarding the opening and overall themes of the movie. If you’re worried, come back after you see the film.

Germain Lussier, io9: The first time I heard about you guys was On the Lot in 2007.

Adam Stein: That’s where we met.

io9: [Laughs] Yes, that’s true. You’ve made a lot of cool stuff since then. But if you guys now could talk to those guys then and say it’ll take almost 20 years to get our first big theatrical release, what would they have said?

Stein: [Laughs] You know, it has been such a roller coaster navigating the industry. But it’s been amazing that we have gotten to do it together. It’s a really hard thing to try to become a director in Hollywood. And so to have your best friend there with you to bounce ideas off of and commiserate with along the way has really been—we’ve been so lucky to have that. But I would say for people who are out there, who are in the struggle themselves, it takes a lot of perseverance, it takes a lot of resilience.

Zack Lipovsky: But also those ups and downs are the lessons you need to learn. Like, we couldn’t have made this movie if someone had handed it to us 20 years ago. We didn’t have the wisdom or the experience that you get from things falling apart, and failures, and trying things that don’t work, and making movies that aren’t good. And all those types of things that you have to do to kind of hone your craft and get there.

io9: Tell me about the conversations you guys had when you found out this was available. I’ve heard all about the Zoom, which is so cool and I’m mad it doesn’t exist somewhere.

[Both laugh]

But tell me about even before that—like when you said, “My God, Final Destination 6, let’s pitch on it and figure it out.”

Lipovsky: Well, I think actually the first gut reaction was, “How are they gonna make another one, because the end of five is perfect.” Right? So, “Really? They’re gonna make another one? Like what could they possibly do?” And then we started to hear this idea that Jon Watts had come up with about making the movie about a family. Starting it with the origin of this family and death is coming for this bloodline. And how much that would enrich all the relationships and the stakes and all those types of things. That really made us start to lean in and go, “Okay, that’s pretty interesting.” And then from there, [we] started to work on the process of getting hired. And then, a many-year process of working with the writers and the team to just kind of bring that inherent new idea through the movie in a way to make it feel more fresh and surprising.

io9: Right, the first time I heard about this, it was like “Jon Watts is doing it.” And obviously he came up with kind of the kernel idea. But how much was actually in place when you guys came on board, and how much were you able to make it your own?

Stein: They had done one draft of the script based on Jon’s idea when we first got involved. And the core of it was there. The idea of the opening would take place with Iris, I think it was the 1950s originally? But in the past, and then flash forward to her granddaughter. That was there. The details of who each person was, what all the death scenes were, completely changed over the course of two years of us being involved. But the core thing of it being a family that was fractured, that then could come together in a way, even as death was chasing them. That got us really excited. That was present in the original.

io9: I’ll come back to some more of that soon but just as guys who are film fans, filmmakers, film nerds, what was the most exciting thing about the freedom of, presumably having your biggest budget? Besides the food. Everyone says the food.

Lipovsky: We never had time to eat food. [Laughs] I think for us, it’s working with the caliber of crew that we had. You’re suddenly working with some of the best people at their craft in the world. You have the most incredible stunt people, special effects people, makeup effects people, and incredible actors. All the toys you’ve ever wanted. You can be like, “I really need this very special lens for this one shot I want to do.” You have it. So that, as a filmmaker, is just so much fun. Now, of course, you never have enough time or money. Because as soon as you start going, “Oh we could do that too, and do this,” you max out all the ability.

Stein: You build a 120-foot set, surrounded by a volume, and light it on fire, well, that costs a lot. [All laugh.] But I think as filmmakers, the thing that we really got a kick out of is Final Destination, what makes it special as a horror franchise, is that there’s no personified villain coming for the characters. There’s no guy with a knife and a mask. What comes for the characters is the filmmaking. It’s these close-up, insert shots connected to other shots that build this mouse trap in the perfect, suspenseful way. It’s really like the directors are coming for the characters. So that was so much fun to kind of relish that experience.

io9: Speaking of the effects, just knowing you guys, I know wanted to do practical as much as you can. So talk about when you’re coming up with the death scenes, when, you know, “Okay, this is as far as we can push the practical, and then we have to kind of finish it off with digital.”

Lipovsky: Yeah, we call it “the Guillermo del Toro school of filmmaking” where you do as much as you can practically, knowing that visual effects can help with the magic trick. And then the visual effects are really removing the things that are supporting the practical element. So we have a practical body or a practical set or something like that, or even people with a whole bunch of green rods and blue screens and things around it that are making it so that that practical thing can happen right at the center of frame. And then you use the visual effects to extend the set or erase the rod or do those things so that it really becomes hard to tell at which point what’s real and what isn’t.

So there’s always something real there. And then the visual effects just kind of make it magical and kind of impossible. We try to do that whenever possible. Even there’s people falling through the dance floor and they’re falling and grabbing onto things dropping 40 feet, they’re [actually] falling through a dance floor and grabbing onto things, dropping 40 feet. But then everything around them is extended and kind of beautifully done by the visual effects team. But at the heart of it, we always just wanted something real.

Stein: To give you another example, there’s a character that gets torn apart in the opening sequence. And there was a full-size mannequin body of this person with puppeteers that rip it in pieces, but then you erase the puppeteers. But the real thing you’re looking at really happened.

io9: What sequence changed the most during either pre-production or editing as you were thinking about the balance of the practical and digital?

Lipovsky: I think one sequence that changed dramatically was what became the backyard barbecue scene, which is a really great scene. It actually started as a kids’ play place, Chuck E. Cheese-type set piece with bumper cars and bowling and all that crazy stuff. But we kind of ultimately realized that the core of these movies, especially this movie, was family, and also very relatable things. And so by making it a barbecue, you can kind of do all the things that we all have in our house, which is even more terrifying. And so it kind of changed into that.

io9: This film—almost more than the other ones, which I watched beforehand—really messes with you with the red herrings. And I love it so much. So how early do you have to think about that, to make sure you have all the coverage while editing to know that these are like 15 things that we’re going to use to mess with you?

Stein: You plan it out way before editing, in storyboards and scripting. To plant things that come back much later or to misdirect the audience. Because the main thing we wanted to do was keep it surprising. So you have a character walking backwards into a road and everyone in the audience goes, “Oh my god, oh my god,” and then [the car] misses him. So the audience kind of knows that we’re playing with them. Death is toying with the characters, just like we’re playing with the audience. Because we always wanted you to feel on the edge of your seat, like you don’t know what’s about to happen. So we had to plan that very far in advance.

We were inspired by some of the other movies—the guy in FD2 throws the spaghetti out the window, and then his house catches on fire, he almost gets his hand caught in the garbage disposal, and all this stuff happens, and he gets on the fire escape and then slips on the spaghetti. So we tried to do that kind of thing where, like, there’s something that happens with a vending machine that you kind of forget about, and then it comes back.

io9: Oh it comes back, yes it does. Another thing that I loved about this is that it takes the formula and it tweaks it in a couple of really interesting ways. One that happens early, so it’s not a huge spoiler, is we don’t get the premonition right way. So how early was that in the process that you’re like, right from the beginning we’re making this a new Final Destination?

Lipovsky: That was a designing principle which was not have the premonition working exactly the way that all the other movies had, so that fans of the franchise right away went, “Wait, this is different than I’m used to. What is going on here?” And almost worried that we’re jumping the shark or breaking the rules or doing something wrong. But then, slowly, as the movie continues on and you realize what’s going on, you realize, “Oh, this does fit within the canon. It obeys all these rules that we’ve come to love.”

But it was, like Adam was saying, it was building on that idea that as early as possible, we wanted people to not know where this was going next. And it’s really difficult with a Final Destination movie because there’s basically a formula. It’s something that you know what’s going to happen. But that makes for a boring movie. And so you have to figure out ways to still be true to it, but also keep it fresh

io9: And you guys crushed that. Another thing I loved about it is, I love lore. Star Wars, Marvel, I love all that. And here the whole thing is lore, basically, right? So how early on was it decided that all the other movies are kind of the baby of this one?

Stein: I mean, I think that was kind of a fun aspect of having this character, you know, Grandma Iris, who’s been in this cabin for decades, who’s been researching all the ways that people have died in the other movies. And it was actually inspired by FD1 how Alex in that movie, Devon Sawa’s character, traps himself in the cabin and is opening tuna cans with oven mitts because he knows death is coming. Well, we always loved that scene. And we thought, “Okay, what if you did that for decades? How would your life be? What would you know? What would you be researching?” And so Grandma Iris’s book with all the lore from all the other movies, that’s how that came together.

Lipovsky: We even put an Easter egg in there where in FD1, he says, “I see you, you fuck” to death. And then Iris says the same thing in her cabin.

io9: One thing we haven’t seen now in six movies, though, is, death always wins but something is giving them the premonition. Something is battling.

Stein: Yes. We have a theory.

io9: Okay. I would love to hear your theory but I was just wondering, is that something you think could be introduced into a future movie or would that ruin kind of the formula?

Stein: There have been lots of fan theories about some force of good that’s providing the premonition. I mean, we don’t want to piss people off and that is very valid theory.

Lipovsky: And we don’t have a canon answer, but we have theories.

Stein: Our own personal answer is that it’s death is bringing the premonitions because death, you know, he gets bored. He wants to have fun. So he does this thing, gives them enough clues that they could escape it if they’re paying attention, knowing that he’ll get them in the end in an even more fun way later.

io9: I like that and I think fans will like that. Before I finish, I have to ask about Tony Todd. The fact that he passed is obviously horrible, but having him with this role in your movie it gives it this aura and this heart that is totally unexpected. So tell me about like first shooting with him. It was like when you found out?

Lipovsky: Yeah. Well, we knew from while we were developing, we knew that he was sick. So it was developed with that in mind with him. You know, at first we were worried that he wouldn’t want to be in it or he wouldn’t be able to be in it. But he was so excited to be in the movie.

Stein: And he’s like, “Don’t write me out of this movie. I have to do this.”

Lipovsky: And we were very grateful that we could write the movie with that in mind, knowing that at the very least, this would be probably his last Final Destination movie, maybe his last movie ever. But we didn’t know that for sure. But that this would be saying goodbye to Bludworth. And that was designed from the beginning and worked very closely with him. And then even beyond that, when we shot that scene that day he was full of so much joy. It was just this electric feeling of seeing him do what he does so well.

And then when it came to doing that last moment where he says goodbye, even with all the preparation we had done, we just said, “Tony, just throw it all away and speak from the heart about what this has all been about and what’s on your mind.” And, you know, his own mortality was on his mind. And he just spoke about how precious life is and how to take advantage of it. And that’s what he had shown us all day on set. He had done that. And it really comes through on screen when he he’s just he says that.

Stein: Yeah, he’s speaking directly to the audience there. And I think takes a lot of people by surprise how much emotion they feel in that moment.

io9: It’s wonderful. Now that your first studio movie is in the books, and I hope there are many more, but what do you say the biggest lesson you guys took out of it?

Lipovsky: The biggest lesson… I think the biggest thing that we learned was just that you don’t ever want to lose that same enthusiasm you had when you started making small movies and trusting your gut on the things you think that the audience will love. And just kind of trying to ignore the studio-ness of it all and just make that movie for yourself who’s the fan and bring that to life. And hold on to that, that joy of cinema and making a movie with your friends in your backyard and just trying to do that with cooler toys and amazing actors.

Io9: One last stupid final question. The little kid at the beginning. You hate him so much.

Stein: By the way, I love the theater reaction in that moment. The first time we screened it for a test audience and we had someone jump up in their seat and pump their fits when [he dies]. So you’re on the right track. That was really fun.

io9: But since that was in the premonition, did we ever see him die again in real life?

Lipovsky: There is a there is a newspaper article on the wall and if you look for the headline, I think it says “Pickpocket hit by piano moving van.”

Final Destination Bloodlines is now in theaters.

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