Directors Of ‘Final Destination Bloodlines,' Now On Streaming, Talk Tony Todd's Emotional Role

Forbes

17-06-2025

Tony Todd in "Final Destination Bloodlines."
Final Destination Bloodlines, new on streaming on Tuesday, gave directors Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky the chance to work with Final Destination franchise star Tony Todd, but the experience was bittersweet.
Todd, who died on Nov. 6, 2024, at age 69, reprised his iconic role of William John Bludworth in Final Destination Bloodlines, the sixth film in the Final Destination movie franchise that began in 2000. Todd — who also played the lead role in the hit Candyman horror series — appeared as Bludworth in the first Final Destination film and reprised the role in the second, fifth and sixth chapters of the franchise. In addition, Todd's voice is featured in Final Destination 3.
In Final Destination Bloodlines, Kaitlyn Santa Juana stars as Stefanie, a college student traumatized by recurring dreams of the deadly collapse of the Skyview, a posh restaurant and music lounger housed in a Seattle Space Needle-like tower in 1968. As Stefanie comes to learn, her dream is a premonition her future grandmother Iris (Brec Bassinger) had, and that she warned the Skyview's patrons of the impending disaster, saving dozens of lives.
Unlike the previous Final Destination chapters, death is not only coming to claim the survivors of the Skyview collapse, but all of the members in the survivor's bloodlines, which spans two more generations.
Owen Patrick Joyner, Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Adam Stein, Tony Todd, Teo Briones, Zach Lipovsky, Rya ... More Kihlstedt and Richard Harmon on the set of 'Final Destination Bloodlines.'
Todd appears in a pivotal scene in the third act, where Iris' clues lead Stefanie and her other family members to the mysterious mortician who has a unique insight about death to give them answers.
In a Zoom conversation prior to the release of Final Destination Bloodlines, Stein said of Todd, 'He was very physically weak and ill. You could kind of see it just in how different he looks from how he used to look. So, we felt very emotional the day he arrived on set.'
Despite the fact that he was ailing, Stein said Todd was 'very joyful' and 'so excited' to be on the Final Destination Bloodlines set.
'He was sick, and he'd been in and out of doctors and all that stuff. But this was like a true highlight for him, and you could see just in the way that he interacted with the crew and the other actors,' Stein said.
'He felt so joyful to be there, which puts in context his final words on screen," the director added. "He was living by the motto he said at the door, which is, 'Life is precious. Enjoy every single moment,' and that's what he was doing when he was on set for those scenes.'
Note: The next section includes spoilers from 'Final Destination Bloodlines.'
During the opening scene of Final Destination Bloodlines, Stefanie's dream of Iris' premonition tells how Iris befriended one of the singers at the Skyview restaurant and lounge, as well as her young son. As it turns out, the boy is the young William John Bludworth.
As such, Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky were thrilled to bring the story of Tony Todd's iconic character full circle.
'In the other Final Destination movies, he's this very interesting, mysterious creepy presence and you don't know why he knows so much about death,' Stein said. 'But there's an element of it that goes into trope territory of, 'He's a mysterious mentor figure who isn't really a full character.' So, we thought in this movie, it was a real opportunity to cut to explore who Bloodworth is as a human being and how he knows so much about death and why he knows so much about death.'
As a result, Stein and Lipovsky seized the opportunity to give Bludworth a backstory — which as audiences come to learn, involves Iris and her premonition that saved dozens of people including the young Bludworth.
'We wanted to explain, 'What was he doing there in those other movies? How does he know so much about death? Why does he creep up on people who are suffering from this premonition? It's because. He personally went through it,' Stein noted. 'It's because he is facing the same mortality. Death is coming after him eventually.
So, his friendship with Iris and their research about death over the decades is what gave him that expertise,' Stein added. 'Final Destination Bloodlines gave us a really exciting opportunity to kind of give more dimension to the Bludworth character that fit with the other movies but also felt fresh.'
While Bloodworth's story is brought full circle in Final Destination Bloodlines, the film doesn't bring the Final Destination story as a whole full circle, the directors said. True, death comes looking for all those who cheated it in the Final Destination movie series, the victims are not part of the bloodlines of characters in the latest chapter in the hit horror series.
"People have been theorizing that [they are related]. I don't think we go that far, because that would mean that a lot of the characters from previous movies their parents would have had to die as well, which they didn't, necessarily,' Lipovsky said with a laugh. 'But, we wanted to create that type of feeling of 'This is an origin story, at least for Bludworth, and how he became so obsessed with death.'
Final Destination Bloodlines is now available on digital streaming via premium video on demand.