Development Final Destination 3 was originally the last part of a trilogy and had been in development since the release of
Final Destination 2. Director
James Wong said that unlike the second film, which was closely tied to the first
Final Destination and continued its story, the producers always envisioned
Final Destination 3 as a stand-alone sequel featuring new characters. He said: [W]e really felt that the idea of
Final Destination, or the fact that Death can visit you and you can cheat death ... could happen to anyone." By not using characters from the first film, the producers could use a new plot, with new characters who would be unaware of what was happening to them and react accordingly. Morgan said it was for financial reasons and because he believed fire and blood effects would not be shown properly through the red filters of
anaglyph 3D systems. Morgan said he searched the aisles of a store on
Sunset Boulevard for days for inspiration for Erin's hardware-store death.
Loss of control is a major theme he and Wong had envisioned for the film from the very beginning; both Wendy, who is afraid of losing control, and the roller coaster exemplify this. He said psychologists have confirmed that one reason some people are afraid of riding a roller coaster is that they have no control over it and what happens to them.
Casting During the casting process, Wong sought actors who could portray the main characters as heroic individuals with realistic qualities. Perry echoed this sentiment, saying that for the Wendy and Kevin characters they looked for actors who "had the charisma of movie stars, but weren't so ridiculously rarefied that you couldn't feel like you might know them". On March 21, 2005,
Mary Elizabeth Winstead and
Ryan Merriman—co-stars of
The Ring Two (2005)—were cast as
Wendy Christensen and Kevin Fischer. Winstead, who had auditioned for the second
Final Destination film, On April 9, 2005,
Kris Lemche and
Alexz Johnson were cast as the
goth couple Ian McKinley and Erin Ulmer. Johnson, who was starring in the Canadian television series
Instant Star (2004–2008), had auditioned to play Wendy's sister Julie; that role later went to
Amanda Crew, who originally auditioned to play Erin. Johnson said she wore a rocker jacket during her second reading and was in a bad mood. As she was leaving, the filmmakers called her back to read some of Erin's sarcastic dialogue in a scene. Johnson thought her
dry sense of humor, which the filmmakers caught, helped her land the part. Maggie Ma and
Ecstasia Sanders played Julie's friends Perry Malinowski and Amber Regan, respectively.
Filming and effects Like the first two installments of the franchise,
Final Destination 3 was filmed in
Vancouver, Canada. Filming wrapped in July, but viewers at early screenings reacted negatively to the ending. This led to the filming of a new ending sequence featuring a subway train derailment in November 2005. According to Perry, in the film's revised ending, it was intended to have
A. J. Cook and
Michael Landes reprise their roles as
Kimberly Corman and Officer Thomas Burke, respectively, from the previous movie. However, as one of the actors was unavailable, they decided to omit both characters entirely. roller coaster was used as the Devil's Flight in the film.
CGI and a variety of camera angles made it look larger.|alt=Photograph of a red roller coaster performing a loop. The death scenes required varying degrees of 2D and 3D graphic enhancement. The roller coaster scene necessitated 144 visual-effect shots. Custom-designed coaster cars were built and modified for the script; most of the model was hand-built and computer-designed
MEL scripts added specific elements. For the coaster-crash scenes, the actors were filmed performing in front of a
green screen, to which a
computer-generated imagery (CGI) background was added. Several of the roller coaster's cars were suspended with
bungee cords to film the crash; the deaths required the use of CGI onscreen effects and each actor had a corresponding CGI double. Meteor Studios produced the roller coaster and subway crashes while Digital Dimension handled the post-premonition death scenes. The death of Ian McKinley, who was bisected by a cherry picker, proved especially challenging. A clean plate of the cherry picker falling was originally shot with a plate of Lemche acting crushed and falling to the ground with his bottom half in a partial green-screen suit. After combining those plates, Wong said "he wanted more of a gruesome punch for the shot". A standard CGI body of Lemche's height was used; several animation simulations of the body being crushed with a CGI object were filmed. The director chose the version he liked most. A new plate was then filmed with Lemche imitating the chosen animation and positioning his body at the end. Soho VFX created the scene where Ashley and Ashlyn are killed on tanning beds. It consisted of about 35 shots of CGI skin, glass, fire, and smoke mixed with real fire and smoke. The subway crash in the film's epilogue used a CGI environment reproducing the main aspects of the set.
Final Destination 3 is the only film in the series without a commercially released soundtrack. Musician
Tommy Lee provided a cover of
The O'Jays 1972 song "
Love Train", which was used in the film's closing credits. Lee enjoyed "put[ting his] own darker spin on it for the movie". ==Release==