Final Destination is a 2000 supernatural slasher film written and directed by James Wong. The film was co-written by Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Reddick, both of them having previously worked with Wong in the TV series The X-Files. The film stars Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith and Tony Todd. Sawa portrays a teenager who "cheats death" after having a premonition
of himself and others perishing in a plane explosion and uses it by
saving himself and a handful of other passengers, but is continued to be
stalked by Death by claiming back their lives which should have been lost in the plane.
The film was based on a spec script for The X-Files
written by Reddick. After his co-writers admired his screenplay,
writing partners Wong and Morgan were interested and agreed to direct a
feature film with it, marking Wong's film directing debut.
Filming took place in New York and Vancouver. Final Destination was released on March 17, 2000, and was a financial success, making $10 million on its opening weekend.
The film received mixed reviews from critics; where negative reviews
classified the film as "dramatically flat" and "aimed at the teen dating
crowd", while positive reviews praised the film for "generating a
respectable amount of suspense", "playful and energized enough to keep
an audience guessing" and as "an unexpectedly alert teen-scream disaster
chiller". It received the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film and Best Performance by a Younger Actor for Sawa's performance. The film's success spawned three sequels composed of Final Destination 2 (2003), Final Destination 3 (2006), The Final Destination (2009) and one prequel Final Destination 5 (2011), all distributed by New Line Cinema; as well as a series of novels and comic books published by Black Flame and Zenescope Entertainment respectively.
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