25 Years Ago, This The X-Files Episode Launched the Entire Final Destination Franchise
The story of Final Destination's creation is worthy of its own movie.
A paranormal horror franchise about the power of fate, Final Destination plays on our fears and anxiety, provoking paranoia on both sides of the screen.
A series of deadly coincidences lead to the deaths of the characters after the victims escape a tragic fate in a major disaster, be it a plane crash or a highway accident (don't tell me you don't avoid trucks loaded with logs).
Few people know that the original script draft titled Flight 180 was written for The X-Files. In an episode that was never filmed, Agent Scully's younger brother Charles had a premonition of his impending death.
Jeffrey Reddick Wrote the Script for Flight 180 as One of The X-Files Episodes
Chris Carter's paranormal procedural premiered in 1993. Not immediately, but fairly quickly, The X-Files became a hit and continued to experiment with formats.
Many writers got their start on shows about UFOs and FBI agents, including Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. Aspiring writer Jeffrey Reddick was a fan of The X-Files and decided to try his hand at television as well – he wrote the script for the episode Flight 180.
The story was based on a news story that New Line Cinema intern Jeffrey Reddick happened to hear on TV or read in a newspaper. A woman had a nightmare that her daughter might die on a flight and begged her not to get on the plane.
The flight did crash, but the girl survived because she listened to her mother. That was the beginning of the work on Flight 180.
The Entire Draft of the Flight 180 Script Is Still Available to Read
The draft of Flight 180 is not exactly a legend, but a very specific text. On the anniversary of Final Destination's release, Jeffrey Reddick talked to Bloody Disgusting about working on the material and shared the script. Flight 180 can still be read in its entirety today.
The main character was Dana Scully's younger brother Charlie, who only appeared in one episode of the first season, Beyond the Sea. This episode also had a premonition theme: at night, Scully had a dream of her father, and then the agent woke up to a call from her mother – Mr. Scully had died.
Flight 180 Has Exactly the Same Premise as the First Final Destination Movie
The premise repeats the plot of the movie: at Newark Airport, Flight 180 is preparing to take off. Charles, unable to cope with the anxiety, goes to wash the bathroom, returns to his seat, and after takeoff, the plane begins to shake terribly, and then an explosion occurs.
After a terrible vision, Charles woke up in his seat and panicked: several other passengers left the plane with him. Immediately after takeoff, the plane did crash. Two months after the events described, death begins to haunt the surviving passengers.
Flight 180 Explains Nature of Mysterious Deaths
The mythology of Final Destination is still quite ambiguous, despite the introduction of a mysterious character from the morgue. However, the nature of the deaths was explained in the episode's script.
Premonitions of disaster come to those who are not meant to die. Charles sensed the future precisely because his time had not yet come. However, the other passengers who followed him were destined to die that day.
A person was sent from the afterlife to get them – this person experienced clinical death the same minute as the plane crashed. He returned to take the accidental survivors with him. The concept may seem less mysterious, but it offers a fairly specific explanation.
The Draft Was Turned Into a Feature-Length Script With the Help of The X-Files Writers
According to one version, Chris Carter rejected the script. Jeffrey Reddick later said that he never showed the draft to the writers of The X-Files, but rewrote the story into a feature-length movie himself and presented it to the bosses of New Line Cinema.
In a striking coincidence, James Wong and Glen Morgan, the writers and producers of The X-Files who wrote the episode Beyond the Sea about Dana's premonition, helped develop the script for the feature film.
James Wong also signed on to direct Final Destination. The first draft of the screenplay was written in 1994, and Final Destination premiered worldwide in 2000 – the rest is history.