In the wake of his $1.5 billion grossing Sony Marvel Cinematic Universe sequel, Spider-Man: No Way Home, filmmaker Jon Watts is boarding New Line‘s Final Destination 6 as a producer. Lori Evans Taylor and Guy Busick are writing the screenplay from a story by Watts based on his treatment.
The sixthquel is destined for HBO Max. The Final Destination movies are unique in the horror genre as their antagonist isn’t a physical being, but Death personified.
The original producer of the previous five Final Destination movies Craig Perry is also returning with Sheila Hanahan Taylor. In addition to Watts, Dianne McGunigle also joins the producing team. In total the horror franchise has minted $700M WW, making it New Line’s third biggest horror franchise behind the $2 billion Conjuring universe and the It movies which grossed over $1 billion.
“Both Dianne and I have been massive fans of Final Destination from the very beginning,” Watts said in a statement this morning, “So to be able to have a hand in crafting a new story with the original team and New Line is going to be both fun and exciting.”
“Jon and Dianne’s passion for the series is only matched by how much fun they are to work with,” beamed Perry, “Sheila and I couldn’t be more excited to have their creative energy driving this latest installment in the Final Destination franchise with New Line. With Guy and Lori’s inspired execution of Jon’s original idea, we have a movie that audiences are gonna love.” Perry’s first job in the film industry was in the New Line mail room in 1991.
Watts’ last three MCU Spider-Man movies count a running global cume of $3.5 billion. No Way Home stands as the 8th highest grossing movie at the global B.O. of all-time, while its domestic take of $668.3M, currently puts the sequel as the 6th highest grossing title at the domestic box office. Spider-Man: No Way Home landed the second-highest domestic opening in history and handily passed $1 billion worldwide in little more than a week, topping the domestic weekend box office for the last four weekends running.
Busick’s next movie as a screenwriter is Paramount/Spyglass/Destination’s Scream which is eyeing No. 1 this coming weekend with at least $20M over the four-day MLK holiday.
New Line’s upcoming horror movies include a feature take of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot on the big screen in early September and Evil Dead Rise on HBO Max.
Watts is repped by CAA and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole LLP. Busick is repped by A3 Artists Agency, Gotham Group and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein. Taylor is repped by ICM Partners, Kaplan/Perrone and McKuin Frankel Whitehead LLP.
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