Movies
20 Years of Death’s Design: Jeffrey Reddick Digs into How Different His Original ‘Final Destination’ Script Was
We’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of Final Destination all week here on Bloody Disgusting, and we’re not the only ones. Consequence of Sound just published a fantastic in-depth oral history of the film that was written by Jason Scott, including interviews with writer/creator Jeffrey Reddick, producer Craig Perry and stars Amanda Detmer and Kerr Smith.
As most of you reading this right now are probably aware, the concept for Final Destination originally started out as a spec script Jeffrey Reddick wrote in the early ’90s for “The X-Files,” titled Flight 180. Ultimately, Reddick never actually sent the script to the “X-Files” team and instead started developing the idea as a feature film for New Line. The rest is history.
Speaking with Consequence of Sound in celebration of Final Destination‘s 20th anniversary, Reddick dives into the ways in which his original draft of the feature film script differed from the final product that we ended up with. Reddick’s script was eventually worked on by James Wong and Glen Morgan, which is when it morphed a bit from his original concept.
“In my original version, since death had messed up the first time, it couldn’t just kill the people. It basically exploited their biggest fears and drove them to suicide,” Reddick explained.
He continued, digging a whole lot deeper…
“In my draft, Alex’s best friend Tod rigged up a noose in his garage. He was a preacher’s son and stole stuff from his dad. He was calling his father on his car phone to say he was sorry. When the dad came home and opened the garage, he hung himself.
“Carter jumps in front of a subway train and kills himself. There are remnants of the deaths in the film. In the script, he was still a jerk, but he felt really guilty after his girlfriend died. You saw this other side of him when he was grieving.
“I had written a sister who stayed on the plane and a sister who got off the plane, which was changed to two brothers [Tod and his brother]. The sister who died in the plane crash was the straight A student. The other was the one always getting into trouble. Her sister started haunting her, and so she started dressing like her sister and acting like her sister. When she couldn’t be her sister, she set herself on fire.
“There was another character who had attempted suicide before the plane crash. She started getting haunted by all the people who had died before her. She ended up killing herself.
“Terri was still dating Carter. But because he was so demanding of her, she was bulimic. She died earlier in my draft, and Carter was haunted by her. She shows up and torments him at a subway station, saying, “Do you know what I did to myself to look beautiful for you?” She starts puking her intestines out, which is an homage to Gates of Hell, an old Italian horror film. That drives Carter to jump in front of the train.
“The finale was Clear going back to the crash site and reliving the plane crash. She was standing on the ground, and the plane literally crashed on top of her. All her dead friends showed up around her. She had a gun, and death was basically tormenting her to kill herself. Then, she realizes she’s pregnant, so death couldn’t get her, because there was an innocent life inside of her.
“The original ending was Clear in the delivery room having the baby. You think it’s all good, but all the lights go out. A dark figure comes into the delivery room, and you realize that now the baby’s been born, she’s a goner. Alex is the only one left.”
“They went to Clive Barker first, and he passed on it,” Reddick adds. Wong and Morgan (two major players in the world of “The X-Files” – talk about serendipity!) came on board in the wake of Barker passing, which is when “death’s sadistic design” was conjured up. Rather than driving the characters to suicide, the unseen force would brutally kill them in creative ways.
Head over to Consequence of Sound to read the full oral history.
This week kicked off with the release of hippo horror movie Hungry at home, and four more horror movies have arrived for at-home viewing as we head into the final weekend of June.
Here are the new horror movies that released on Friday, June 26, 2026!
The Halloween season can no longer be contained to the months of September and October, with “Summerween” becoming a thing in recent years. Essentially, it allows for Halloween to bleed into the warmer Summer months, and the first ever Summerween movie has arrived.
The Asylum released Summerween onto Digital outlets today.
In the film from writer/director Ryan Ebert, “On Summerween, a former circus clown escapes a mental institution to return to his abandoned mansion and hunt the teens partying there.”
Cole Chapleski, Chase Breithoff, Logan Roe, Sophia Sabol, and Clint Morrison star.
Director Ryan Ebert is the man behind a string of recent indie horrors we’ve covered, including Shark Side of the Moon, The Jolly Monkey, Jurassic Reborn, and Predator: Wastelands.
A witchy coming-of-age story from Dark Sky Films, Camp is now playing in select theaters.
Check your local listings to find a theater near you.
Camp is from writer-director Avalon Fast (Honeycomb, The Serpent’s Skin).
“Emily is the root cause of two devastating tragedies very early in her life, and she feels the weight of these accidents as though cursed. At her father’s suggestion, she takes a position at a summer camp for troubled youth to ease her guilt. When Emily arrives, she is welcomed by the other counselors, who accept her as she is and surround her with peace and forgiveness.
“As Emily begins to believe in a new kind of life, she starts to hear a voice whispering from deep in the woods — one that urges her to go home, and one that may be impossible to ignore.”
The film stars Zola Grimmer in her screen debut alongside Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis (Castration Movie Part 1 & 2, In A Violent Nature), Ella Reece, Austyn Van de Kamp (This Too Shall Pass), Sophie Bawks-Smith (Honeycomb), Izza Jarvis, and Aiden Laudersmith.
Producers Tyler Perry and Jason Blum have joined forces for Peacock Original Strung.
The film is now streaming only on Peacock.
“A talented violinist takes a prestigious job as a music tutor for the gifted daughter of an influential and enigmatic family. As she becomes entangled in their opulent world, unsettling secrets begin to surface, forcing her to question her safety, her dreams, and even her sanity.”
Malcolm D. Lee (Scary Movie 5, Space Jam: A New Legacy) directs from a script written by Alan B. McElroy (Wrong Turn, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers).
Chloe Bailey (“Swarm“), Lynn Whitfield (Jaws: The Revenge), Lucien Laviscount (“Scream Queens”), Anna Diop (Us), Coco Jones (Vampires vs. the Bronx), Langley Kirkwood (“Banshee”), and Romy Woods star in Peacock’s Strung.
Produced by Diablo Cody, director Meredith Alloway’s Forbidden Fruits brought a new coven of witches to the big screen earlier this year, and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
Lola Tung (“The Summer I Turned Pretty”), Victoria Pedretti (“The Haunting of Hill House”), Alexandra Shipp (Tragedy Girls), Gabrielle Union (Breaking In), and Emma Chamberlain star in Forbidden Fruits, released by IFC and Shudder.
Free Eden employee Apple secretly runs a witchy femme cult in the basement of the mall store after hours. But when new hire Pumpkin challenges the group’s ‘girl boss’ ways, the women are forced to face their own poisons or succumb to a bloody fate.
“Forbidden Fruits grabbed me by the neck the very first time I read it,” Diablo Cody said. “It’s one of the craziest, most creative, beautifully bonkers projects I’ve ever worked on.”
Meagan Navarro writes in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “Forbidden Fruits may not necessarily forge new terrain in the teen satire space, but Alloway brings so much style and energy to her well-cast single-location stage play adaptation for the Gen Z crowd.”
The film is an adaptation of playwright Lily Houghton’s stage play Of the Women Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die. Alloway and Houghton co-adapted.
This week’s new release roundups are presented by HUNGRY.
All aboard the swamp tour from hell – this hippo isn’t playing games…
HUNGRY is now available on Digital. Watch it now!
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