| Final Destination | |
|---|---|
 Official franchise logo | |
| Created by | Jeffrey Reddick |
| Original work | Final Destination (2000) |
| Owner | New Line Cinema (Warner Bros. Entertainment) |
| Years | 2000–present |
| Films and television | |
| Film(s) |
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Final Destination is an American horror franchise that includes six films, nine novels, and two comic books. It is based on an unproduced spec script by Jeffrey Reddick, originally written for The X-Files television series and was distributed by New Line Cinema. All of its six films are set around the premise of a small group of people who escape impending death after one individual has a sudden premonition and warns them about a major disaster that is about to occur. After avoiding their foretold deaths seen in the visions, the survivors are later killed one by one in bizarre accidents caused by an unseen force by creating complicated chains of cause and effect, resembling Rube Goldberg machines,[1] and then read omens in order to again avert their deaths.
The series is noteworthy among other horror films for its use of an antagonist that is not a stereotypical slasher or other physical being, but Death manifested, subtly manipulating circumstances in the environment with a design on claiming anyone who previously escaped their fated demise. In addition to the films, a novel series, which includes the novelizations of the first three films, was published throughout 2005 and 2006 by Black Flame. A one-shot comic book titled Final Destination: Sacrifice was released alongside select DVDs of Final Destination 3 in 2006, and a comic book series titled Final Destination: Spring Break was published by Zenescope Entertainment in 2007.
The franchise has been praised for its innovative premise of the abstract concept of Death itself as an invisible force killing people instead of a usual slasher killer, and the creativity of the films' sometimes convoluted and tense death sequences.
- ^ Conrich, Ian (2015). "Puzzles, Contraptions and the Highly Elaborate Moment: The Inevitability of Death in the Grand Slasher Narratives of the Final Destination and Saw Series of Films". Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film. Palgrave Macmillan, London: 106–117. doi:10.1057/9781137496478_8. ISBN 978-1-137-49646-1.