How A Fake Decapitation Landed Directors ‘Final Destination Bloodlines'
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - MAY 12: Directors Adam B. Stein (L) and Zach Lipovsky seen at New Line ... More Cinema's "Final Destination: Bloodlines" World Premiere at TCL Chinese Theatre on May 12, 2025 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Warner Bros. via Getty Images)
When it came to getting the chance to direct Final Destination Bloodlines, Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein knew that it was a job to die for — or at least give the impression they were willing to die for it.
Lipovsky and Stein — a directing team who met on Steven Spielberg's FOX TV reality competition On the Lot in 2007 and went on to co-direct their first feature, Freaks, in 2018 — were among the 200 filmmakers in contention to direct what was then known as Final Destination 6 in 2022.
Looking to set themselves apart from their competitors for the coveted filmmaking gig, Lipovsky and Stein decided to take a Final Destination-like approach to getting the attention of executives at Warner Bros. subsidiary New Line Cinema.
In a recent Zoom conversation to discuss what is now known as Final Destination Bloodlines, the directors recalled how they pulled off the movie magic that landed them the job.
Stein said the trickery began while he and Lipovsky were showing studio representatives images during a Zoom presentation.
'We were in a small square off to the side and while screen sharing the images, we switched to a virtual background, which allows you to put a video in the background of your shot,' Stein recalled. 'Zach is a VFX whiz, so he was able to create a virtual background that came to life and we stepped out of the Zoom and to allow our virtual selves to come into the background in a way that felt seamless.'
What followed was a fake fire they was extinguished and a ceiling fan was put on to clear the smoke. If that wasn't surprising enough to the studio reps, the fan went haywire and one of its blades caused Stein's shocking faux death.
'I got my head cut off and fell out of the frame and Zach jumped backward and then switched off the virtual background very quickly so that our live selves could come back into the real background.'
However, Stein's decapitation scene lasted long enough to frighten the studio reps.
'The room was on fire and then they realized, 'Oh, they planned this,' and they kind of applauded thinking it was over,' Lipovsky recalled. 'Then they were incredibly surprised when the ceiling fan fell down and chopped Adam's head off and Tarantino-level blood was spurting all over the place.'
Essentially, Lipovsky said, he and Stein wanted to create an experience for studio executives on the call that was akin to the feeling of watching a Final Destination movie.
'One of the really tricky things about pitching when you're trying to get a job is pitching what the tone of the movie was going to feel like,' Lipovsky explained. 'You can say it's going to be scary, surprising or funny, but by [creating the fire and the fake death] we were able to give them the experience and having the delight of showing that we understood the tone of Final Destination.'
The only downside of the experience was that Lipovsky and Stein's creative Zoom meeting won't ever make it to their highlight reel.
'They didn't record the Zoom and they've been kicking themselves ever since,' Stein said, laughing.
Playing in Thursday previews and opening in theaters everywhere on Friday, Final Destination Bloodlines begins with the torment a college student named Stefanie (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) suffers as she keeps having recurring nightmares about woman who turns out to be her grandmother Iris (Brec Bassinger).
The nightmare takes place in 1968 atop a Seattle Space Needle-like tower called the Skyview, which houses a posh restaurant and lounge with a clear glass floor that gives a breathtaking view of the hundreds of feet below them.
However, in a series of events that unfolds like the machinations of a Rube Goldberg device, the tower soon explodes into flames and glass windows and floor shatter, sending patrons falling to their grisly deaths. Eventually, Stefanie comes to discover that her nightmare was actually a premonition that Iris had and she was able to warn everybody in the club before all hell broke loose.
But as anyone whose seen a Final Destination movie knows, if you escape what is supposed to be your death, death will come looking for you to finish the job. In the case of Final Destination Bloodlines, however, death is not only coming for the people who escaped the Skyview disaster, but all of their blood relatives who came after them, including Stefanie.
The Skyview scene in "Final Destination Bloodlines.'
True, while the odds of falling from a skyscraper are astronomical in real life, Lipovsky and Stein also made sure to weave some deaths into Final Destination Bloodlines that were completely plausible — like the backyard barbecue mishap in the film's wildly unnerving trailer.
'Everyone has that feeling all day of, 'Oh, this is a little off, but it'll be fine,' like every time you get on a plane to every time you walk across the street to every time you take a subway,' Lipovsky said. 'There are small things in your everyday life where there's this voice that's like, 'Eh? It'll be all right.' So, every time we had that feeling we went, "You know what? What if it wasn't, right? Let's put that in the movie, so you constantly have this awareness.''
As such, Lipovsky said Final Destination Bloodlines — as fantastical as it may seem — will also inspire a feeling of relatability with its audiences.
'What makes this movie work is that there are these very relatable, everyday things that everyone experiences,' Lipovsky said. 'Everyone's tried to light a barbecue that's not quite lighting, you know?'
Rated R, Final Destination Bloodlines plays in Thursday previews before opening in theaters everywhere on Friday.
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