The Directors Of The Next ‘Final Destination’ Got The Gig In Part By Faking A Decapitation

It’s been 11 long years since the last Final Destination film, which is way too long for one of the most creative and bloodiest series out there. But like many dormant franchises, it’s coming back. New Line has even found their directors, and to show that they’re the right people for the job, their pitch ended with them faking a decapitation.

Those directors are Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, who directed the 2019 sci-fi film Freaks. (Solo, Lipovsky handled the 2014 film Leprechaun: Origins.) In a new piece about how they landed the gig directing a movie centered around Rube Goldbergian deaths, The Hollywood Reporter reports (in a bit teased out by The AV Club) that the two got creative:

The duo made their pitch to New Line execs and producers together, with a burning fireplace behind them. As they wrapped up the meeting, the fire came alive and the mantel began burning. The filmmakers stopped and, after a tense moment, quickly extinguished the flames. As they sat down, everyone relieved the accident had passed, a wrenching creak was heard and suddenly, the whizzing ceiling fan broke off and flew down, decapitating one of the filmmakers.

As one might imagine, the execs were at first worried then delighted when they realized their Final Destination 6 helmsmen had pulled off a neat trompe l’oeil using a “combination of prerecorded footage and visual effects.” It was, as THR put it, the “cherry on top.”

So next time you’re up for a job, make sure you stand out from the pack by pretending that you’ve had your head sliced off by an out-of-control fan, much like SNL’s instant classic Dead Poets Society parody.

(Via THR and The AV Club)