Final Destination 6 starts filming

Horror continues to be one of the healthiest big-screen genres, as reasonable budgets and audiences’ penchant for watching actors have a really bad time have kept it afloat and thriving even through the pandemic years, regardless of the quality of the final products. Now, it’s Final Destination’s turn to return.

While we typically think of demons, spirits, monsters, or just human murderers, one killer saga used to be Final Destination, which sent death itself after unsuspecting groups of people who somehow cheated a fatal fate. Enter countless anxiety-inducing, wild Rube-Goldberg-machine-like sequences that ended with gory ways to go out (nothing will ever top Final Destination 2’s opening accident). If you had a love-hate relationship (or simply love) with the franchise, it’s time to celebrate, as the sixth installment is finally shooting.

Via Bloody Disgusting, we’ve learned that Final Destination 6 has finally entered production and that it’ll be hitting IMAX screens next year. The update came straight from veteran Final Destination and American Pie producer Craig Perry on social media, who hyped up the occasion: “After a long, hard slog through the pandemic and the strikes, Day One is finally in the can. 2025 will mark the 25th anniversary of the release of the first installment in the franchise. To honor the occasion with another worldwide theatrical release (in IMAX, no less) is a rare and wonderful thing.”

Yep, the very first Final Destination is turning 25 next year, so it feels like things ended up falling into place perfectly after all. The series had inexplicably gone on hiatus for more than a decade following 2011’s Final Destination 5, which still made $157 million globally on a $40 million budget, a success by all counts. With 1980s nostalgia largely stale now and movie studios starting to look at 1990s and early 2000s properties to bring back, it makes sense that we’re getting a continuation now.

After all this time, fans are also expecting the script to hit some new notes and refresh the central idea of cheating death or breaking the spooky cycle, especially after Final Destination 5‘s shocker of an ending, which revealed it was actually a prequel to the original movie. Last summer, franchise creator Jeffrey Reddick teased (via Collider) that Final Destination 6 “doesn’t follow that kind of formula that we’ve kind of established” and that the script “kind of unearths a whole deep layer to the story that kind of, yes, makes it really, really interesting.” Color us morbidly intrigued.