While Final Destination: Bloodlines marks the rebirth of an iconic horror franchise, it’s also a sad farewell to Tony Todd, one of its most legendary and few returning stars.
The gentle giant known for his distinctly deep and gravelly voice reprises his role as William Bludworth for a fourth and final time in the series, which has grossed $657.62 million worldwide to date. Todd, also known for playing the title lead in the original Candyman film franchise, passed away on Wednesday, November 6, 2024. His performance in Final Destination: Bloodlines was completed not long before his passing.
“We had known him for almost 28 years,” explains co-producer Craig Perry during a Q&A at an early screening in Los Angeles. “Tony was generous, lovely, and present, and having him be on set was enough for everybody. You just felt his energy, his charisma, and his professionalism. He just was an endless pro, but more than anything, he was kind. It was wonderful to see a lot of the younger actors be able to show up and spend time with him.”
Todd’s performance was completed not long before his death. Final Destination: Bloodlines will be released exclusively in theaters on Friday, May 16, 2025, and is rated R.
“The thing that was most interesting is we threw out the script when he was exiting and said, ‘Say what you want the fans to hear,’ so everything that he says walking out was specifically meant for everybody in this room,” the filmmaker explains. “That was from him, that was not scripted, and we all knew what was going on, so we wanted to make his last experience the most positive, comfortable, and joyful thing. I think we were able to deliver that thanks to all you guys, and hopefully that translates into your experience.” Perry, the only producer of the series to have been involved in the production of all five Final Destination movies, also produced the American Pie movies.
Tony Todd Used ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ To Share Wisdom With Fans
Final Destination: Bloodlines co-director Adam Stein also discussed Todd’s deeply meaningful scene in an interview with The Guardian.
“Everyone involved knew he was ill, and we weren’t sure at certain points whether he would be able to participate,” he recalls. “It was a really unique moment because talking about his own death for the movie on this meta level, he’s speaking to the fans about his death. And so, in that moment when he had his final goodbye, we asked him if he would be able to kind of put the script away and do a take where he spoke from the heart about what death means and what life means. It’s his honest words of wisdom direct to you.” Todd’s other celebrated works include films such as The Crow, Platoon, The Rock, Wishmaster, Hatchet, and Tom Savini’s remake of Night of the Living Dead.
One thing is for sure, and that is that Todd wanted to play Bludworth again. However, in an interview with me for Forbes.com in 2019, he confirmed that he wouldn’t just return for a paycheck. It had to be good.
“It would be dependent on the script,” he said. “I have no interest in doing something just to do it. If the script is new and challenging and provides new light on characters I have already established, I’d want to be part of that.”
It has been 25 years since the first Final Destination movie landed in theaters and 14 years since the last one, the fifth in the franchise, was released. The only one not to star Todd was Final Destination 3; however, he voiced an animatronic devil statue at the start of the film. All of the Final Destination movies are currently available to stream on Max. So, what has taken so long to bring Final Destination: Bloodlines to the big screen?
“There was a desire after five to do it, but we just want to get a little bit of breather, and we started the process about 2018,” Perry recalls. “We had a draft, and then something happened, which was Covid, and then there were strikes, so there were circumstances that pushed this thing further. But I think what that did has made people like yourselves look forward to it even more.”
Co-producer Sheila Hanahan Taylor continues, “We wanted to invigorate what everyone was waiting for. It was time to bring something new to the table. So then we had the great fortune of finding Jon Watts in the equation, who came up with the story, and there’s nothing like a lifelong fan. He went on one of his first dates with his now-wife to see a Final Destination movie. He had the idea of the family, and that was the magic formula where we said, ‘Okay, now let’s move this forward to the next level.'”
Here’s What Makes ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ A Sequel To Die For
Avoiding spoilers, Final Destination: Bloodlines ups the ante when it comes to the trademark creatively killer demises that drive fans wild. However, this quest means many of them that seem great initially end up tossed for many reasons.
“It’s this weird combination of an accessible location that we all find ourselves in, and then you have to start identifying what a mundane object in that environment we can imbue with a malevolence as if death is manipulating it,” Perry muses. “We wrote a sequence for one of the earlier drafts that took place in a supermarket because everybody goes grocery shopping. It was eight pages long and very complex, and then we put it away and read it four days later. We were like, ‘This is terrible.’ It sucked because it was trying too hard.”
“It was a good lesson because you can’t automatically plug and play with Final Destination’s sequences. You have to workshop them endlessly, right down to the finest point, because if one little piece doesn’t connect, the whole thing falls apart. We have to make sure that everything is plausible and incredible, just enough so that when someone says, ‘Oh, that would never happen. The chances are a million to one,’ we can say, ‘Yes, Final Destination lives in that percent of the million. That’s where the franchise lives, on the razor’s edge of plausible.'”
