Brec Bassinger in “Final Destination Bloodlines.”
Since Final Destination Bloodlines made a killing at the weekend box office, will it get a sequel?
Directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, Final Destination Bloodlines scored an estimated $51 million in its opening Friday to Sunday frame from 3,523 North American theaters and $51 million internationally for a worldwide box office tally of $102 million. Produced by Warner Bros., Final Destination Bloodlines had a $50 million budget before prints and advertising, per Variety.
The official logline for the sixth film in the Final Destination franchise reads, “Plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, a college student returns home to find the one person who can break the cycle and save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.”
Rated R, Final Destination Bloodlines stars Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger and the late Tony Todd.
Final Destination Bloodlines, aka Final Destination 6, marks the first Final Destination movie since 2011. The original Final Destination movie was released in 2000.
Since it has been 14 years since the release of Final Destination 5, it’s not a stretch to classify Final Destination Bloodlines as a reboot of the franchise. While a sequel to Final Destination Bloodlines has not been announced, it seems all but a given that at least another chapter — let’s just call it Final Destination 7 for now — will be produced following the film’s massive success this weekend.
After all, there were five Final Destination movies before Final Destination Bloodlines, so it would be non-sensical restart the franchise only to stop it dead in its tracks following such an overwhelming positive reception by both audiences and critics.
Note: Spoilers for “Final Destination Bloodlines” are discussed in the next section.
Does The Rolling Penny During The End Credits Of ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Mean Anything?
While there is no after-credits sequence tagged onto Final Destination Bloodlines to give a hint that another Final Destination film could be on the way, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein still constructed a unique sequence to kick off the end credits that begs some questions about the future of the franchise.
It happens when the penny that is pivotal to the entire plot of Final Destination Bloodlines rolls across the newspaper clippings about all the victims that death came to claim after they averted a grisly fate in the Skyview restaurant tower disaster.
For context, the film begins with a sequence where the Seattle Space Needle-like structure collapses, but thanks to a premonition by Iris (Brec Bassinger), everyone meant to die in the mishap survives.
In the ensuing decades, Iris figures out death’s plan by collecting newspaper clippings about the grisly demises of not only the people in the Skyview but also all of their blood relatives.
Kaitlyn Santa Juana in “Final Destination Bloodlines.”
Later on, when the adult Iris (Gabriel Rose) hands over the clippings to her granddaughter, Stefanie (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), to warn her of death’s plans, Stefanie traces the bloodlines of all the people who died by constructing what amounts to be a family tree of death.
In a Zoom conversation with Lipovsky and Stein prior to the release of Final Destination Bloodlines, I asked the directors if the sight of the penny rolling across the newspaper clippings bore any significance. Specifically, I asked if there was more Final Destination mayhem ahead since the coin keeps rolling on into the darkness instead of falling flat onto one of its sides and coming to a rest.
“Yeah, I think that was part of it. I think another part of it was what comes right after that is the dedication to Tony Todd,” Lipovsky said, referring to the iconic actor who died in 2024 at age 69. “It rolls off into the darkness, you hear the theme from [Final Destination 1] and then it tilts up to ‘In memory of Tony Todd.’
“I think for us, the penny rolling off was sort of like riding into the sunset, but into the darkness — and not falling over kind of represented Tony’s spirit, living on in some ways instead of the penny coming to a rest,” Lipovsky added. “It’s like he’s still out there. He’s still out in the dark, haunting us for many years to come. So, that’s kind of the emotion we’re trying to evoke there just before dedicating the film to him.”
When it comes to the idea of another Final Destination film, Lipovsky and Stein like the idea of it, but they also know given their three-year commitment to make Final Destination Bloodlines, Final Destination 7 is something that won’t happen overnight.
“In terms of more, death’s work is never done. There’s always more to do,” Stein said with a smile. “These movies do take several years to figure out because they are such intricate, twisty Rube Goldberg machines. So, you never know what the future holds, but it was definitely fun to do this one.”
Final Destination Bloodlines is playing in theaters worldwide.
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