Final Destination Bloodlines directors talk making an "unusual" sequel focused on family and "heart": "It gave an extra weight to each death"

Final Destination Bloodlines directors Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky set out to make a different kind of FD installment - with the concept of family at the center of it to give a new kind of weight to each freak accidental death.

"We always said we wanted to make a Final Destination movie that you had to watch through your fingers because you were cringing so hard, but you also were smiling and laughing at the same time," Stein tells GamesRadar+. "That's kind of the tone we were going for because Death in these movies - we've always loved how Final Destination Death is so clever. And you kind of end up rooting for Death and trying to figure out what Death is gonna do next. And it's so delightful to kind of plan these intricate Rube Goldberg machines, and there's a lot of fun to be had with that."

Final Destination Bloodlines follows Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), a college student who begins suffering from waking nightmares about a premonition her grandmother Iris (Gabrielle Rose and Brec Bassinger) had in 1968 about the Skyview Restaurant Tower collapsing (an understatement, really) upon opening. Realizing her grandmother holds the key to putting the nightmares to an end, she returns home in hopes of finding Iris - only to learn that, after all these years, Death is ready to kill her family off one by one because they should have never existed.

This time around, the ensemble cast is not a group of random teenagers , but a family forced to reunite. The cast includes Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Rya Kihlstedt, and Anna Lore. Tony Todd appears in his final on-screen appearance.

"I think probably one of the elements you responded to was the heart of the film, which is unusual for a Final Destination movie. Once we made it about a family, it changed the dynamics quite a bit because instead of a group of strangers going through the curse of death coming for them, now it's family members," Lipovsky explains. "And that allowed us to do two things. One, to start them further apart so that over the course of the journey of the film, they're actually forced to come together and get over their secrets and their other grudges and kind of come together as a family. But also, it gave an extra weight to each death and the urgency of saving the next person because now these are people that they love rather than people that they just met."

Stein and Lipovsky direct from a screenplay by Guy Busick (Ready or Not, Abigail, Scream) and Lori Evans Taylor (Cellar Door) based on a story they developed with Jon Watts.

Says Stein: "The cast had such chemistry with each other, too. You know, all those little moments between them. I mean, the performances are so great. Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Kaitlin Santa Juana - they all just have this chemistry to them. And we really also tried to set them loose, where we would do improv takes, where people would come up with new little funny lines. We didn't use them all in the movie, but the ones we used are just so delicious. They're all just incredibly talented."

Final Destination Bloodlines hits theaters on May 16. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2025 and beyond.