‘Final Destination’ at 25 – Director James Wong Reflects on Cheating Death [Interview]

Audiences learned that cheating death comes at a price when Final Destination opened in theaters 25 years ago today.

“Everybody experiences close calls, and everyone knows that, at some point, they’re going to die. Hopefully you die in a quiet, gentle way, but it happens. You have to understand that it’s going to happen to you,” director/co-writer James Wong tells Bloody Disgusting.

“When Final Destination came out, the critical reaction wasn’t over the moon or anything, but it just kept on. Generally a movie goes out of the top 10 within the first three weeks, and ours just stayed up there for a long time.”

Before spawning a franchise that changed the way we look at seemingly innocuous things like logging trucks and tanning beds, Final Destination began its life an “X-Files” spec script by Jeffrey Reddick that was later rewritten by Wong and his then-partner, Glen Morgan.

“Death was sort of personified — maybe not as much as, like, The Seventh Seal, but there was a guy with a scythe, as I remember — and we wanted to not do that. We thought, ‘Well, maybe the best way for us to do this is change who the killer is,’” Wong says.

“In life, really, death is all around us. What if his death is also sadistic, and uses these Rube Goldbergian ways to make his point? We wrote the script with that in mind, and [New Line Cinema] gave us the green light to make the movie.”

The film marked Wong’s first feature in the director’s chair. “The reason why I got to make it is because I had my directorial debut on ‘X-Files’ in Season 4, and I was lucky enough to earn an Emmy nomination for best directing. That’s how my agent got to say, ‘Hey, Jim gets to direct this movie.’ And I’ll be honest with you: I was scared to death.”

He relied on his crew and friends like Morgan to help him through the process. “Some filmmakers would like to let you know that they’re the brains behind everything, but filmmaking is really a collaborative process. The people you surround yourself with are invaluable.”

The biggest challenge proved to be the unknown. “There were multiple kills, obviously, and they had different setups and different lengths. Lewton’s was the longest, most sadistic, where Terry’s, the bus hit, was the fastest.

“Going into it, we didn’t really know how the rhythms of the deaths would translate to the audience. Is this right? Is this wrong? Are we allowing the audience to catch on to what we’re doing and at the same time subvert their expectations? That was the hardest part for me, because I didn’t know how or if it would work.”

He discovered that it did, in fact, work after seeing the film with a crowd. “I went into the theater during the first run, because I love watching a movie with an audience. We suddenly saw a bunch of ushers from the theater walk in in the middle of the movie and just stand by the side. And I realized it was right before the bus hit. They just wanted to see the audience react.

“I think they did a whole advertising campaign where they had cameras on an actual audience, and popcorn’s flying and all that stuff. That’s the reaction that I’m sort of most proud of in all my filmmaking. It’s so visceral and surprising. I really feel like that’s the kind of fun that Final Destination delivers on a film-to-film basis. I think that’s why it survived.”

Wong speaks highly of working with the late, great Tony Todd as mortician William Bludworth. “It’s not so often that you come upon an actor that elevates and at the same time solidifies your idea of what the character is, and Tony did both of those things.

“The way he moves, the way he speaks, the tenor of his voice, his physical presence; it just embodied that character. At the same time, when he did it on set, I go, ‘Wow, this guy’s creepy!’ And that’s exactly what you need. It was a short role, at least in the first movie, but it was so memorable. He was great.”

The director recently rewatched Final Destination, but not just for nostalgia. “We did a whole new coloring timing on it. Warner Bros. was generous enough to give us some money and time to digitally redo the color time of the movie.”

He’s unsure how or when the restored version will see the light of day. “I don’t know why we would do it if we don’t have a theatrical release. I’m hoping there’ll be some kind of Fathom Events or something like that that you can experience the movie again in theater.”

In revisiting the film, he noted one thing he would do differently if he had the chance. “There is a pre-premonition world and there’s a post-premonition world, where life has changed for Alex. In the production design, we actually built two versions of the sets that we see again, like his room and some of the other places we visit.

“The dimensions of the sets were actually different. It was a really exciting idea to me, but I don’t think I did a great job. I was too subtle. If I were to do it today, I might make that change more apparent.”

By the time Wong returned to the series to helm 2006’s Final Destination 3, both he and the audience knew what to expect. “That was probably the most fun I had in shooting a movie, and I felt fully confident that we knew what we were doing,” he says of the sequel.

“We felt like the kills were right and the characters were right. The most effective death for me — well, besides the bus hit, which was just a shocking, fun surprise — is the tanning bed sequence.

“I actually really felt for the girls. It’s one thing to die with your clothes on; it’s another to be completely vulnerable like that. On set obviously the tanning beds were not hot, but their reactions made me squirm. I knew then that it was gonna work.”

The franchise will return from a 14-year absence on May 16 with the release of Final Destination: Bloodlines. “I thought the fifth was the end, the capper, because it kind of reverted back to the first one, but I’m super happy that they’re doing it,” Wong says.

“I have no idea what the sixth one’s about. I’m excited to learn as well as, hopefully, the audience. Craig [Perry, franchise producer] says people love the trailer and people love the movie in test screenings, so I’m excited for it.

“To be honest with you, I never expected that movie would go beyond the first one, so I’m just tickled,” he chuckles.

Wong is pleasantly surprised that people still talk about Final Destination a quarter of a century later. “I’m happy to say that it’s survived all this time. 25 years is pretty incredible, and I’m proud of it.”

The inevitability of death, he surmises, is the key to Final Destination‘s longevity. “Other franchises are based on the charisma of the killer, or the lack of charisma sometimes. The teenagers are really just fodder for the kill, and the fun is watching how Jason or Freddy kills them.

“For Final Destination, death itself is interchangeable within our lives. It could come from any direction. You don’t have to be at Camp Crystal Lake in order to to encounter the killer. The killer’s all around us. I think that idea is what makes it long lasting. It could be anything in the room that you’re in or the place that you’re traveling,” he explains.

“Death is right there, the next breath.”

In celebration of the 25th anniversary, Final Destination is now on sale to purchase for $9.99 at all digital retailers through March 31.