Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! Today, I’m paying tribute to one of my favorite horror films released this year, Final Destination: Bloodlines! After this franchise laid dormant for 14 years, it brought us a hell of a return and a wonderful send-off for horror legend, Tony Todd. So, watch out for wayward pennies, don’t go jogging on trash day, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMD.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com, facebook.com, and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• Tony Todd (Bludworth) was given complete creative control for his final scene. He didn’t have much time left, so the crew wanted him to have the final word of his career. His last monologue was a message to all of his fans, not just the characters. When talking about Todd’s last scene, the film’s producer, Craig Perry stated, “We all knew that he was obviously quite ill, and it was pretty clear that this was going to be the last role he would play in a movie. And the fact that it was one of the Final Destination movies made it that much more poignant. Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, our directors, they made a very shrewd decision to take the last couple of lines that were scripted and say, ‘Tony, just say what you would want to say to the fans. What would you like to impart to them in this moment?’ So, everything that makes that scene so emotional is authentic because that was just Tony talking through the camera to the very fans who supported him for so many years. So, it was a very magical moment on set. It was an impactful moment, and it’s one I’ll take with me until I go to the grave.”
• In the previous installments, producers would schedule the filming of a character’s death scene on the actor’s last day of filming. While making this film, it was actually the opposite and most of the actors shot their death scenes on their very first day.
• Yvette Ferguson was a stuntwoman who came out of retirement at 71 years old to film the fire scene in the film’s premonition. Zach Lipovsky believed she held a world record for being the oldest person to be set on fire on camera. Ferguson enjoyed the experience and she mentioned how the make-up artists would encourage her by playing songs like Burn, Baby, Burn and Great Balls of Fire.

• When Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt) was trying to remember the name of the hospital, one of the names she mentioned was Clear Rivers. Clear Rivers (Ali Larter) was the protagonist of the first two Final Destination films.
• Just like his character, Bobby, Owen Patrick Joyner has a severe peanut allergy in real life.
• During the barbecue, the family can be seen drinking Hice Pale Ale. This is a fictional beer brand that has made an appearance in the franchise ever since the second film.

• Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein were such huge fans of the franchise, they went above and beyond for their pitch meeting to the studio to land their jobs as co-directors. They orchestrated an entire death scene using a combination of pre-recorded footage and visual effects, involving a fire and malfunctioning ceiling fan, which broke from the ceiling and decapitated one of the filmmakers. All of the executives and producers erupted into laughter and Lipovsky and Stein got the jobs!
• When Iris (Brec Bassinger) and Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) pulled into the Skyview lot, you can see that their license plate reads FL8 18E, which is a reference to the original film’s disaster, Flight 180.
• Iris (Gabrielle Rose) was the oldest known visionary in the whole franchise. She was also the first visionary who wasn’t the main protagonist.

• Unlike production in the previous installments, the directors actually encouraged improvisation and ad-libbing by the main cast during rehearsals. Most of the improvised interactions made it into the final cut.
• Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) chasing down the garbage truck Julia (Anna Lore) was in was written in the script, but her grabbing and jumping on the ladder on the truck was not. Kaitlyn Santa Juana was told not to physically touch the truck for safety reasons, probably wanting to leave it to a stunt-person, but Juana improvised in the heat of the moment.
• The directors confirmed that the protagonists in the previous films had no connection to anyone involved in the Skyview disaster. They felt it would break canon considering we see the parents and family members of the characters still alive by the time their own brushes with death came around. I don’t know if I buy that, though. I still believe there’s a way to make the connection.

• The original story was going to be set in the 1950s and set on a riverboat. The directors changed this because they felt that there was no way to “out-titanic” Titanic.
• The studio pulled a prank for Mother’s Day by inviting mothers and their adult children to an advanced screening of the film. They made the families believe they were going to watch a romantic comedy titled Love At The Sky View.
• Stefani’s car has the same RFK 575 license plate number that Carter (Kerr Smith) had on his car in the first film.

• The app that the garbage truck driver, Mo (Shawn C. Orr) is swiping on is called Crushr, a very subtle or obvious bit of foreshadowing.
• The directors stated that the number on the train, 0513, was another nod to the first film. Flight 180 departed on May 13th to go to Paris. The colors on the train are red and blue, which are the traditional colors of Paris.
• At one point, Erik (Richard Harmon) was going to be a live-streamer who was killed in the midst of streaming a VR game. Julia was going to be majorly into monster trucks and one was going to explode in her face.

• The directors stated that Iris had a bunch of wind chimes all over her cabin because “in these movies, Death comes on the wind.”
• Iris dies in a similar fashion as her premonition, where she is impaled through her mouth.
• In this film, Bludworth confirmed that Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook) from Final Destination 2 is still alive after dying and being brought back to life, forcing Death to start over. This makes the newspaper article about her death in Final Destination 3’s “Choose Your Fate” no longer canon.

• This is the first time a protagonist successfully prevented the major disaster from happening, rather than just escaping it. Because Iris took the penny, covered the fire from the cooking pan, and warned everyone about the dance floor, no one died at the Skyview and the building was demolished with no casualties.
• Darlene’s original death scene was a lot different and originally took place at the hospital. Her key chain was caught in the revolving door and as it’s crushing her neck, a letter from the hospital sign fell and smashed her head, having been loosened by the MRI machine that killed Erik and Bobby. Stefani and Charlie (Teo Briones) then headed out to Iris’s cabin and Stefani chose to live in the cabin in solitude to save Charlie’s life.
• For the red carpet premiere, everyone was dressed up except for Alex Zahara (Uncle Howard), who dressed up in the outfit that his character died in.

• While leaving the hospital, Darlene almost crashes into a log truck. We originally see this as a throwback to Final Destination 2, but it’s actually foreshadowing for when the giant logs kill Stefani and Charlie in the end.
• Erik’s first scene shows him playing Mortal Kombat 1 where his character, Kitana pierces her opponent in the head with a metal fan. This foreshadows Bobby’s fate as he dies by a metal spring piercing his head due to Erik’s decisions.
• The brand of peanut butter cup that Erik and Bobby buy is called Frendo, which is the name of the clown from Clown In A Cornfield, a horror film that was released the same year as this one.

• Dr. Reddick (Matty Finochio), the father of Charlie’s prom date, was named after Jeffrey Reddick, the creator of this franchise.
• During the barbecue, the song Escape (The Piña Colada Song) can be heard in the background. The song is about a spouse trying to cheat on their partner, and playing this song was foreshadowing to the twist that Brenda (April Telek) had an affair and Howard was not Erik’s biological father.
• Paul was meant to die by falling through the glass floor at the Skyview. Years later, his son, Howard would die after stepping on a piece of glass and falling into the path of his lawnmower.