Actor Devon Sawa says watching David Gordon Green’s rebooted Halloween films has made him reconsider the potential for a Final Destination reboot. Sawa began his career as a teen heartthrob, appearing in ‘90s films like The Little Giants, Now & Then, and Casper. In 2000, he starred in the grisly Final Destination as Alex Browning, a teenager who cheats death after experiencing a premonition and faces the otherworldly consequences. The film launched a franchise, resulting in four more Final Destinations with a sixth one on the way as of 2020.
Sawa’s character looms large throughout the franchise, as he’s the only person to be referenced in the four subsequent films, either via photograph, archival footage, or word of mouth. Following Final Destination, Sawa has leaned into the horror genre even more, starring most recently in The Fanatic, Hunter Hunter, and the Chucky series. He’ll appear next in the holiday horror comedy, Black Friday, alongside The Evil Dead’s Bruce Campbell.
In an interview with OK Magazine, Sawa says he would consider doing a Final Destination reboot, a realization he arrived at only after seeing the latest Halloween movies. “I always thought that ship had sailed,” admits the actor. The timeline of the Halloween films, which act as a direct sequel to the original 1978 film, inspired Sawa into thinking something similar could be done with Final Destination. Still, the actor isn’t adamant about reprising his role, adding that he “love[s] watching the new cast do their thing.” Read Sawa’s full quote below:
“I would like to revisit Final Destination again. I always thought that ship had sailed but now that I've seen the Halloween movies, I mean, why not just start another sequel from #2, like as if the other [films] didn't happen."
The phenomenon Sawa is referring to is known, of course, as retconning—or retroactive continuity—and it occurs in the Halloween franchise in spades. Halloween: H20 retconned the events of Halloween 4, which had killed Laurie Strode in a car accident. Other franchise installments, like Halloween 6 and Rob Zombie’s 2007 reboot retrofit Michael Myers’ background story. Here, Sawa is specifically referring to David Gordon Green’s 2018 reboot, plus its 2021 sequel Halloween Kills, which both take the franchise back to basics and wipe the slate clean of decades of new mythology, characters, and convoluted plot points. Sometimes retconning, as used in the time travel-heavy X-Men: Days of Future Past, can essentially negate the events of an entire franchise.
Final Destination is seemingly ripe for the Halloween treatment, with Sawa’s character surviving at the end of the film. That said, it is a franchise that has already played around with temporality; Final Destination 5 was revealed, in a twist, to actually be a prequel to the first film. One could argue that Part 5 already retconned the death rules in the series. Moreover, the upcoming Part 6 seems to be deviating even further from the franchise’s linear structure, with the film rumored to be set in a different world with entirely new characters. Luckily for Sawa, there are no real rules when it comes to retconning, and a Final Destination sequel could be a fun new part of the franchise’s continuous world-building.
Source: OK Magazine