Jeffrey Reddick, who wrote the original “Final Destination” film, had plotted out an ideal for a sequel but it’s much different than what ended up in “Final Destination 2″…
When “Final Destination” was released in 2000, no one could have predicted that the film would go onto earn more than $110 million at the box office, which virtually guaranteed a sequel would be made.
Original screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick was in talks with New Line Cinema about ideas for a second film in the “Final Destination” franchise but eventually the studio opted to move forward with a new director and writing team behind the sequel. While “Final Destination 2” did still manage to take home over $90 million while widely being regarded as a solid follow up to the original, the story that takes place in the film is a far cry from what Reddick originally intended.
“Final Destination 2” essentially connects to the original film under the same circumstances — a girl gets visions about a terrible accident that she prevents, which saves the lives of several people, but soon enough death starts coming for all those who survived — and eventually Ali Larter’s character Clear Rivers shows up as the only character from the first movie to then appear in the sequel.
According to Reddick, his idea for a “Final Destination 2” involved Devon Sawa returning as his character Alex Browning, who was ultimately killed off screen for the sequel with it mentioned that he met his demise after being hit by a falling brick.
“I wanted to bring both Alex and Clear back,” Reddick told Collider. “There were some issues with scheduling and stuff with getting Devon Sawa back, and I got annoyed how they just killed him off with a brick, which I thought was a big F you. That’s really my only complaint with Final Destination 2.”
Reddick added that while he wanted to bring back legacy characters from the first to the second film, he also wanted to change the formula so the sequel wasn’t just a carbon copy from the first movie with people just trying to escape death.
In his version of the story, Reddick had actually planned to kill Larter’s character Clear Rivers after she gave birth to a child she shared with Alex, which was part of a larger story involving the constant threat that death was always hanging over their heads.
“If I had them both back, I had always planned on killing Clear, but I wanted to keep Alex alive,” Reddick explained. “I had a cool twist at the end where it still was, you know, she has a life that saves her life, but then death gets her once she has the kid and Alex is still kind of the torch-bearer.
“That was my original take, but with the scheduling stuff, we ended up with no Alex. And I’m like, ‘Ah, if I’d known we weren’t gonna bring Alex back, I would have not have killed Clear,’ because I love bringing original people back, but I don’t like killing them.”
“Final Destination” ended up spawning a total of four sequels with varying levels of success with the last film releasing in 2011.
There is a “Final Destination 6” currently in the works with Jon Watts — best known as the director behind the recent Marvel-Sony “Spider-Man” movies including “No Way Home” — serving as an executive producer along with a story he developed for the sequel. Guy Busick, who co-wrote both of the recent “Scream” sequels as well as “Ready or Not,” was also involved with the script.
The film is expected to be released on HBO Max and will reportedly tie directly into the original films, although there’s still no word on the story or if any past actors might return to the franchise.
