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Geek Tyrant
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
SCREAM 7 Writer Shares Why Sidney Prescott Is Back in and What It Means for the Core Four — GeekTyrant
After stepping away from Scream VI , Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott is making her return to the franchise and according to Scream 7 writer Guy Busick, the upcoming installment was designed from scratch to center Sidney, marking a shift in direction after the original sequel was scrapped due to behind-the-scenes shakeups involving franchise leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. In an interview with ComicBook, Busick explained: 'The original Scream 7 with Barrera and Ortega was a completely different thing… [We] just had to start from scratch, which was a bummer.' Fans were hoping for one last ride with the 'Core Four,' made up of Sam and Tara Carpenter, and the Meeks-Martin twins, Chad and Mindy. 'We were excited about what we had for that movie. We wanted to do one more 'Core Four' movie. We know the fans love those characters. We love those characters. We created those characters.' But, with Barrera fired and Ortega bowing out, the creative team pivoted and found a way to finally tell the Sidney story they'd been sitting on. Busick teased: 'We always wanted to do a Sidney movie and so it was like, 'All right, let's get into it and why now and why this one?'I don't want to give anything away about the reason [Scream 7] had to be a Sidney movie because there's a really cool reason… 'Scream is always in a conversation with the audience about the state of movies, the state of horror movies and in particular, franchises.' Busick is pointing at legacy sequels like Halloween (2018), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), and The Exorcist: Believer (2023) as part of the conversation. He goes on to say: 'There is a really specific reason why Sidney is in this movie. I will say there is a reason and we were happy with it when we cracked it. 'We went to Neve Campbell and said, 'This is why. This is why Sidney now.' Neve was like, 'Oh, I get that.' I pitched Kevin [Williamson] this first, too. He got it and then I pitched the studio.' The film also finds a way to bring back the Meeks-Martin twins—Mindy and Chad—despite the loss of the other half of their group. In regard to that Busick said: 'I believe it was James [Vanderbilt] that came up with it… but it was an organic way why they would be in this movie. I don't want to spoil anything, but I will say it's through Gale. She's the connective tissue in 5 and 6 and she's in this.' He added that the new location 'is not New York,' and suggested it's been 'more than two years' since the events of Scream VI . Then, of course, somehow Dewey (David Arquette) is returning, despite being stabbed to death in Scream 5 . Add to that the return of other previously dead Ghostfaces with Matthew Lillard's Stu and Scott Foley's Roman, and the mystery is clearly part of the plan. Joel McHale joins the cast as Sidney's husband Mark, while Isabel May plays their daughter. The rest of the cast includes some names like Mckenna Grace, Anna Camp, and Jimmy Tatro. There's a lot packed into this seventh film and it sounds like it's going to take some big swings. I'm excited to see what the story will be when the film is released on February 27, 2026.
Forbes
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
How The ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines' Team Brilliantly Revived The Deathly Franchise: ‘I Wasn't Happy Until My Own Heart Rate Increased While Watching It'
New Line Cinema's 'Final Destination Bloodlines,' a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Turns out you can teach Death new tricks! In September of 2022, Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky were selected out of more than 200 hopefuls to direct a sixth installment in New Line's Final Destination franchise. It had been over a decade since the previous entry — 2011's Final Destination 5 — which served as a stealth prequel to the original film and seemed to be wrap up the macabre mythology with a neat, blood-soaked bow. Where could Death's grand design possibly go from here? Like the characters of the iconic film series, Stein and Lipovsky defied the odds and breathed new life into the nearly 30-year-old IP with Final Destination: Bloodlines (now playing in theaters everywhere; click here for tickets) in the same way they subverted the superhero genre with their 2018 breakout feature, Freaks. Boasting a creative arsenal of gnarly kills and a cheeky, self-aware attitude, Bloodlines knows exactly the kind of movie it wants to be. The screenplay written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor is chock full of clever setups, payoffs, hints, and misdirects that not only play with the established canon of previous Final Destination titles, but also build upon them in brilliant fashion. There's nary a false note across the sequel's 110-minute runtime. Audiences seem to agree, with Bloodlines setting new milestones — both critically (a near-perfect score of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes) and financially (a massive $100 million global weekend debut) — for the gleefully morbid saga. 'Something that was interesting, was the unexpected bloodlust of our audiences,' Bloodlines editor Sabrina Ptire admits over Zoom. 'There were some shots where we were debating, 'Is this too far? Is this too much?' [when] To pull off the slaughter-filled success, Stein and Lipovsky needed to assemble a creative that could be fully trusted to realize their vision. To that end, they called on previous collaborators like Pitre and composer Tim Wynn, both of whom had worked with the directorial duo on Mech-X4, Freaks, and the live-action Kim Possible. 'They really fought to have me on board," emphasizes the former. 'I'm a Canadian editor and so, I think it took a little bit of a convincing to bring me down to LA and work on this project. But I'm so grateful that they were [successful] Wynn, on the other hand, lobbied for the composer job, writing a theme for Death itself before a script was even in place. 'I had a feeling that this movie was going to have some of the same story beats [of previous Final Destination movies] ," he recalls over a separate video call. 'It was just my interpretation of what Death sounded like and how it was going to stalk the characters. It fell into exactly what Zach and Adam were looking for. They were looking for a menacing theme that just felt like you could never really get away from it — and I believe that's what my theme does.' At the same time, he wanted to marry the more traditional sound of the late Shirley Walker, composer of the first three Final Destination films, with the contemporary inspiration of Brian Tyler, who took up music duties on The Final Destination and Final Destination 5. 'I wanted it to have modern sound to it, but still evoke the first two Final Destination movies, because we were very aware of the fans,' Wynn shares. 'We wanted them to feel like we were starting the franchise new, but the music still feels like it's part of the whole Final Destination franchise — rather than going completely off-script and doing something that isn't characteristically musical in the franchise.' HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - MAY 12: Sabrina Pitre (L) attends the World Premiere of Warner Bros "Final ... More Destination Bloodlines" at TCL Chinese Theatre on May 12, 2025 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/FilmMagic) HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - MAY 12: Tim Wynn (L) attends the World Premiere of Warner Bros "Final ... More Destination Bloodlines" at TCL Chinese Theatre on May 12, 2025 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/FilmMagic) Like its fatal forebears, Bloodlines kicks off with an ominous premonition of mass mortality, albeit one with a slight twist. This opening turns the clock back to 1968, when a young woman named Iris (Brec Bassinger) singlehandedly prevents a disaster from taking place at a Space Needle-like restaurant called the Skyview. The source of all the trouble? A brittle glass dance floor and a very unlucky penny. By this point in the Final Destination lifecycle, however, audiences have long been trained to expect a cascading series of catastrophic failures in some manmade structure that will result in a gruesome parade of burns, evisceration, decapitation, dismemberment, and a whole other manner of sphincter-tightening butchery. 'You're always looking for ways to stack stuff on top of the other. You can't start off giving it away too early. You just want to sneak in and keep on building the moment,' says Wynn. 'You constantly rise the tension to where it literally explodes on the screen. For Pitre, the fun of cutting the retro curtain-raiser together was playing with viewer expectations: 'People who know the franchise already understand that every little thing that's off is something to pay attention to. Like the kid getting warned not to steal pennies from the fountain, the weird clanging of a flag on the flagpole, or music that comes on the radio that foreshadows doom. But we also wanted to be careful with people who aren't familiar with the franchise to understand what's going on and why we're being so tense about these things. That was an interesting needle to thread. She continues: "The guys always had this intention of things getting tighter and tighter, faster and faster, as the build-up to the climax comes. We did do that, but what I started to play with, were cuts that were sort of off the beat and cause a bit of anxiety in a way … I knew that when when I was watching that sequence, I wasn't happy until my own heart rate increased while watching it.' The production also played around with aspect ratio, using it as a way to signal Death's arrival and exit. It's very subtle and I don't know if audiences will tune into it," Pitre says. 'But what we do, is we open the aspect as Death is arriving, and then we close it when death has left. We thought that just added another layer of really subtle tension that brought people further into the movie and [made it] really immersive.' New Line Cinema's 'Final Destination Bloodlines,' a Warner Bros. Pictures release Once Iris has her vision and prevents the Skyview massacre from taking place, we jump into the future and learn that the opening was actually a portent within a portent. Iris's granddaughter, Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), has been dreaming about that fateful evening in 1968 for weeks, unaware of its ominous significance. Long story short: Iris unintentionally created a multitude of family trees that never should have existed and for the last 50+ years, Death has been working overtime to prune them all via a series of freak accidents, including all the ones we saw in the previous five movies. And since Iris was one of the last people to die in her vision, she, her children, and her grandchildren are next on the Grim Reaper's to-do list. 'A big thing was bringing the family component into it and really building on that in a way where audiences could learn to love these characters,' Pitre notes. 'Obviously, you want them to love the characters because you want them to be upset when they die. I think Final Destination fans are looking for the kills, but if we can make it hurt just a little bit more by taking away a character they love, then all the better.' Indeed, that's what ends up happening as Stefani's relatives are picked, off one-by-one, in ever more appalling 'accidents" involving a lawnmower, a garbage truck, and, most notable and brutal among them, an MRI machine. The latter proved to be the most challenging to edit because of how it had to balance two kills in quick succession. 'The death of a beloved character, Erik [Richard Harmon], happens. We want to be able to mourn that and be upset about it, but we've still got the tension of Bobby [Owen Joyner] and what's happening with him and his anaphylaxis,' Pitre explains. 'It was a fine line between what we could do to build and release and then continue another build of tension in that scene. I found it very difficult to walk that line.' The real key to Bloodlines' success, though, is the fact that each kill is offset with a healthy dose of pitch-dark comedy that makes it acceptable for the audience to laugh as well as cringe. 'With a film like this, where you're building so much tension all the time, these little releases of comedy are are gold, essentially,' Pitre continues. 'They help give the audience a little bit of a break before we build them back up again to some terrible disaster … When you're given those little nuggets, it's an editor's toolbox dream. You have so much to play with." 'I went to school at USC and two of my instructors were the great Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein," Wynn adds. "I mentored with both of them and they really stressed, 'Don't have the music be funny. You be the straight man and let the actors and the script carry the weight and be funny. You just be the supporting cast.' I just tried to propel the action along and and and get out of the way of the comedy.' Kaitlyn Santa Juana (Stefani Reyes) and April Telek (Brenda Campbell) in New Line Cinema's 'Final ... More Destination Bloodlines,' a Warner Bros. Pictures release On a sadder note, Final Destination: Bloodlines marks the final appearance of horror icon Tony Todd (Candyman) as William Bloodworth, the ghoulish medical examiner/funeral home director/hospital morgue worker who basically became Death's human proxy, delivering exposition to doomed characters across the franchise since its inception. This entry reveals that Bloodworth's mysterious knowledge of cheating one's own mortality can be traced back to his childhood, when Iris saved him from a terrible fate at the Skyview. If you listen closely, you'll hear Walker's original Final Destination theme play throughout the scene, which was filmed as Todd was battling the stomach cancer that would ultimately claim his life (the movie is dedicated to his memory). 'We were very excited about the cue, but seeing Tony's face being projected on the screen and hearing Shirley's theme interwoven with my theme was just a magic moment,' Wynn remembers. 'We all just looked at each other — myself, the directors, and producers — and shed a tear in reverence Tony Todd. We were looking to give him a proper send off, and we felt like we achieved it.' 'I think everybody knew that Tony was sick and when the dailies came in, it was really difficult to see him that way,' Pitre concludes. 'But the sparkle was still there. You could still see Tony and we wanted to treat the whole thing very delicately and give him the send-off he deserved. He's such an iconic character and an amazing performer. We were lucky. He brought it on the day and we were able to put together something that I think was a really nice send-off for him. It still gives me chills when I watch the scene back, even now.' Tony Todd as 'William Bludworth' in New Line Cinema's 'Final Destination Bloodlines,' a Warner Bros. ... More Pictures release Final Destination: Bloodlines is now playing in theaters everywhere
Indian Express
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Final Destination Bloodlines movie review: This franchise, and death, goes out with a bang
There are many, many freaky ways that one can die, and the Final Destination franchise has spared few of them. Still, one must say, Bloodlines – the sixth film in a horror franchise that also includes several novels and comic books – is alive and kicking. At least at the start. This is when Bloodlines is uncoiling its tension, the build-up to something horrific in that next sip of glass, the next jump on the trampoline, the next stomped foot in a dance on a glass floor perched up in the air, or most menacingly, the next roll of a coin tossed carelessly away. At the heart of it is an extended family, a racially mixed bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins, who come together with surprisingly genuine warmth. The thought that Death may be coming for one or the other, reaching out across half-a-century to get them, gnaws at us. For a while, it also seems to gnaw at them – and then, suddenly, not so much. That is the way of things in this franchise exuberating in campy horror, where the more gruesome a death, the more the chances of an audience. However, directors Guy Busick, Lori Evans Taylor and Jon Watts (also the co-writers) do put in the effort to get us hooked. The most impactful character they create is Iris (an impressive Bassinger), who sets off the chain of events sometime in the 1950s, thanks to a sense of dread she can't shake off. She is on a dream date with her boyfriend, at a shiny new restaurant called Skyview, which has got its name courtesy its location 500 ft off the ground, atop a tower that has been constructed at a rushed pace 'ahead of deadline'. The live music, the open fire, the overweight elevator, the gust of wind, the swaying chandelier, the clinking glasses, all add to Iris's disquiet. If you have seen enough Final Destination films or read the novels, you can guess what's coming. In this case, Death will stalk down the people in that restaurant that starry evening as well as their progenies. Watch Final Destination Bloodlines movie trailer: If Bloodlines packs enough surprises to give you chills down the spine, it is because Death is stalking a close-knit family. But that is also the most disturbing aspect of the film. Beyond a point, it's hard to chuckle at the thought of a woman losing her husband and all her three children in the space of a few days – however preordained their deaths may have been, and even if the film conveniently forgets about her altogether. Final Destination clearly believes in going out with a bang, or two or three. Its whimpers, though, are the most scary. Final Destination Bloodlines movie cast: Brec Bassinger, Tony Todd, Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Richard Harmon, Teo Briones Final Destination Bloodlines movie directors: Guy Busick, Lori Evans Taylor, Jon Watts Final Destination Bloodlines movie rating: 2.5 stars
