You didn’t expect that “Final Destination Bloodlines” would die some spectacular, implausible, laughable death at the box office, did you? The horror franchise, now in its sixth entry, its 25th anniversary, and revived after 14 years, grossed $51.7 million in its opening weekend to lead the domestic box office, with another $54.1 million on top of that internationally for $105.8 million total.
Even factoring in inflation, “Bloodlines” scored the highest opening of any “Final Destination” film in the franchise dating back to the original in 2000. “The Final Destination,” the fourth film from 2009, was the previous best performer, with $186 million worldwide after a $27.4 million domestic opening against a $40 million budget.
“Bloodlines” has a budget of $50 million before marketing, according to a source, and New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures are in good shape to already make that total back and then some (it has a B+ CinemaScore and some of the best reviews of the franchise, let alone one of the highest for any horror sequel). It also gives Warner Bros. three of the top five domestic openings so far in 2025 after both “A Minecraft Movie” and “Sinners.” And while a more modestly budgeted horror sequel sounds like a safer bet than either of those two movies did before anyone knew they’d be hits, rebooting a dormant franchise that had never surpassed $200 million at the global box office in the height of summer was still a big risk.
“It never left the zeitgeist,” Dave Neustadter, EVP, Production and Head of Creative Development at New Line Cinema, told IndieWire. “Everyone says ‘That’s a Final Destination moment.’ Younger audiences may not have seen the movie, but they know every death sequence, so the more we talked about it internally, we felt like there was a new generation that was discovering the movie.”
With the performance of this film, it puts “Final Destination” and its $800 million lifetime gross in the echelon of New Line’s other top horror franchises, “The Conjuring” movies and the “It” films, which have grossed $2.3 billion and $1.2 billion respectively. But like those films, “Final Destination” couldn’t just be a cash grab to reach a new audience who hasn’t seen the original films.
Richard Brener, the President and Chief Content Officer for New Line who has worked on all six “Final Destination” films, said they had the confidence in the initial concept by Jon Watts and in the finished product to release it in the heart of the summer in May whereas prior films had opened in January, March, or late August. It carved out a moment on the calendar when it could still secure IMAX and PLF screens and remind audiences this deserved to be treated like a tentpole franchise.
“Even if the box office had maybe plateaued a little bit towards the end of the series with the fourth and fifth movies domestically, there was always this good will towards the franchise that we were able to remind people of and stir up,” Brener said.
But while it feels like an especially long delay, franchise producer Craig Perry told IndieWire’s Alison Foreman the film has been in development since the Covid-era and was slowed by both the pandemic and the acting and writers strikes in 2023.
“These scripts are very hard to come up with and to machine and iterate to make sure those sequences really work; that’s usually a two year process in itself,” Perry said. “So while there was a break, it was not nearly as long as I think you’ve experienced.”
The film especially over-performed in the Southern region of the U.S. such as Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and San Antonio, particularly with Hispanic audiences in Texas showing out for the film. It also was largely driven by the 18-34 segment, with the film hitting that perfect sweet spot between Millennial nostalgia crowds and Gen-Z audiences discovering it fresh.
The sweet spot via the Warner Bros. marketing and distribution teams was doing some viral, guerrilla marketing stunts such as log trucks that served as roving billboards, as well as a 25-hour “Deathstream” that teased all the best deaths throughout the franchise.
But the reason “Bloodlines” seems to be working above all is because it is a true theatrical play. Watching the audience involvement with each fake out before the inevitable death is part of the fun, and something Brener says is the franchise that made him as an executive fall in love with audience testing.
“Every 10 minutes, something’s going to happen. You don’t know what, you don’t know when, and that group anticipation is so fun to watch,” he said. “Most of the time, we’re not watching the screen, we’re watching the audience.”
Directors Adam Stein & Zach Lipovsky, two local Vancouver directors who grew up with the franchise in their backyard and are something of superfans, said “Bloodlines” is loaded with Easter Eggs but told IndieWire in a video interview that the film doesn’t require you to know the lore to enjoy it.
“We wanted there to be a lot for fans to come back to on a second or third viewing, but done in a way that new people to the franchise wouldn’t trip over or feel like they’re missing something,” Stein said.
To show just how committed they were to that entertainment factor, Stein and Lipovsky faked their own deaths during the pitch meeting for the film in order to get the job. Neustadter described seeing a pitch over Zoom with a fireplace in the background and objects slowly and subtly moving around as their presentation progressed, only to culminate with a signature Rube Goldberg-style sequence that resulted in a blade penetrating the screen and lopping off one director’s head. It was a hell of a proof of concept.
“We’re just bummed they didn’t record it,” Neustadter said.
Additional reporting by Alison Foreman.
