{"id":354856,"date":"2025-12-17T21:43:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/354856\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T21:43:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:43:08","slug":"zach-lipovsky-adam-stein-talk-gremlins-3-the-traveler-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/354856\/","title":{"rendered":"Zach Lipovsky & Adam Stein Talk ‘Gremlins 3,’ ‘The Traveler,’ More"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEver in search of the next big thing, Hollywood got it when Final Destination Bloodlines<\/a> arrived in theaters on May 16.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth the best-reviewed and highest-grossing installment in the long-running \u00a0premonition-themed horror franchise, Bloodlines marked a major career turning point for Zach Lipovsky<\/a> and Adam Stein<\/a>, a pair of filmmakers who up until this year weren\u2019t that well known in town. They landed the job \u2014 an open directing assignment \u2014 nearly two decades after meeting as competitors on On the Lot<\/a>, Fox\u2019s one-and-done filmmaking competition series from Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett, on which they both placed as finalists.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the show\u2019s casting director paired the two in a hotel room during production, they found that they shared a love for what Stein refers to as \u201cbig Hollywood commercial popcorn movies that have a lot of emotion and character to them,\u201d with Spielberg as one of their shared idols.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe goal with On the Lot was to land a development deal with Spielberg\u2019s storied studio, DreamWorks. But given that neither of the two won, Stein deadpans, it would take them another 18 years to get to get around to working with their idol. Lipovsky describes these years as a journey of \u201clots of ups and downs,\u201d and Stein admits that before Bloodlines, he never got too comfortable with his professional prospects.<\/p>\n

\t\tJOURNEYING THROUGH THE NO MAN\u2019S LAND\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen you\u2019re trying to be a director, it\u2019s a roller coaster, an uphill climb,\u201d Stein reflects. \u201cWe did On the Lot and for basically a decade, it was hard to say that we were going to make a living as directors. It was a long slog through the no man\u2019s land of Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the Lot left Lipovsky and Stein with a portfolio of short films to show off and got them repped. But shortly after their summer with the show, a 100-day writer\u2019s strike hit Hollywood and a financial crisis crippled the world.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn subsequent years, Lipovsky paid his bills in part with VFX work, with Stein working as an editor, including on corporate videos. One of Stein\u2019s editing projects, for director Miguel Arteta, introduced him to Matthew Greenfield, the producer now serving as President of Fox Searchlight Pictures, with whom he says the duo is now hatching a \u201csecret project.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStein\u2019s first DGA directing job came in helming comedy shorts for Jimmy Kimmel Live! for a couple of years. Lipovsky, meanwhile, first began gaining traction as the director of the Crackle zombie pic Dead Rising: Watchtower, as well as both the TV movie Tasmanian Devils and an installment of the Leprechaun horror franchise (Leprachaun: Origins) for Syfy. Lipovsky recalls being $40,000 in debt before he landed the first of these projects, Tasmanian Devils, and being paid only $40,000 by the gig \u2014 which put him back at square one.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Lipovsky describes it, he and Stein were \u201cmostly friends\u201d for the first 10 years they knew each other. Subsequently, they began taking on small projects as a duo for fun \u2014 a short film competition here, a web series there. For the pair, the first project together of any scale was Mech-X4, a series where Lipovsky was producing director and brought Stein on to direct alternating blocks. The pair were nominated for a Children\u2019s and Family Emmy Emmy for their work there and subsequently teamed to direct a live-action Kim Possible for the Disney Channel. Calling these early experiences of working with Stein \u201caddictive,\u201d Lipovsky says they demonstrated to both that it was \u201cmuch more rewarding\u201d to work together than apart.<\/p>\n

\t\tGETTING FREAKY\t<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the years, Lipovsky and Stein attached to myriad development projects \u2014 some of which they worked on for years \u2014 including one with Marc Platt Productions. But none ever got greenlighted. When it felt like each of their individual paths as filmmakers had hit a roadblock, and studio opportunities weren\u2019t panning out, the duo elected to go a different route, taking their destiny into their own hands with an independent film that they could make at a range of budget levels, and with quite limited resources.<\/p>\n

\n\tDescribed by the duo as \u201cextremely contained\u201d \u2014 mostly featuring just two people in a house \u2014 that film was Freaks, in which a sheltered seven-year-old girl (Lexy Kolker) with supernatural abilities escapes her paranoid father\u2019s confinement, only to discover a world that fears people with extraordinary powers \u2014forcing her to confront the truth about her family, her abilities, and outside threats.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis was an extremely scrappy production where Lipovsky and Stein not only wrote, directed and produced, but did craft services and cleaned toxic insulation out of an attic themselves. The work paid off, though, upon their buzzy TIFF premiere, which kicked off an award-winning run on the festival circuit. The film later found a passionate audience on Netflix, and the pair sold original pitches to both Universal and Disney off of this success, also developing a Freaks TV series for TNT with Kennedy\/Marshall. None of these projects ever went anywhere, but Freaks was nonetheless critical to the duo\u2019s rise in that it caught the eye of Warner Bros. executives, which led to the opportunity to pitch on Final Destination.<\/p>\n

\t\tThe ODA\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Lipovsky and Stein started on the path that led them to the job, they were told they were competing against 300 directors. They pitched for four to six months to land the coveted gig and came to Final Destination as fans of the franchise.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI grew up in Vancouver, and Vancouver is where all these movies have been shot,\u201d Lipovsky notes. \u201cSo like the bridge from my house is the bridge in FD5, and the rollercoaster near my house is the rollercoaster in FD3.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis geographical connection to the franchise aside, though, it was two things that got the filmmakers deeply invested in directing Bloodlines. First, Final Destination was a director\u2019s playground of a franchise \u2014 one without a flesh-and-blood villain, where filmmaking itself was the force that was coming for characters\u2019 lives. The other was the prospect of reinvention.<\/p>\n

\n\tLipovsky and Stein have been open about the fact that when they first learned of the Final Destination ODA, they were ambivalent about the idea of the franchise continuing. After all, they felt that the most recent prior installment, 2011\u2019s Final Destination 5, served as a fitting conclusion to the franchise. But this was before they learned of the story treatment by Jon Watts on which the new film is based and read the screenplay draft by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor that was discussed in their first meeting with the studio. That script was fundamentally different in many ways from the film that was ultimately shot, and Lipovsky and Stein would later be part of the intensive process of developing it, from one memorable death scene to the next. But from Watts\u2019 treatment on, this film was innovating for the Final Destination franchise in ways Lipovsky and Stein felt exciting. Firstly, it went way back into the past for an opening sequence that, in its final form, would become the one of the franchise\u2019s most memorable. Secondly, it took the basic movie framework of the premonition in new directions. And thirdly, it had a family element in its DNA that gave the film more heart and stakes, and made it more character-driven than any prior installment in which teens died a series of grisly deaths brought on by Death itself. These aspects to the story, Lipovsky says, affirmed that the franchise was \u201calive\u201d with \u201cnew frontiers\u201d to explore. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe story of Final Destination Bloodlines then came to be about what happens when beloved IP is met with a thoughtful filmmaking take that casts its possibilities in a new light. In making the film, Lipovsky says, it was critical to service two audiences \u2014 diehards who have seen every Final Destination, and people totally unfamiliar with these films \u2014 something that was accomplished through a delicate threading of the needle.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe basically [filled] the movie with references and stuff for the fans, but in a way that it\u2019s all in the background, so that if you\u2019re a fan, you notice it and delight in it, but if you don\u2019t know the reference, it goes right over your head and you don\u2019t even know that it\u2019s there,\u201d Lipovsky explains, adding that it\u2019s key with an assignment like this to make sure that no audience member \u201cever feels left out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tA ROCKET SHIP MOMENT\t<\/p>\n

\n\tInterestingly, given how well Final Destination Bloodlines has fared, the film was originally intended to go straight to streaming. However, it was redirected to theaters amid shifts in strategy at Warner Bros. that predated Lipovsky & Stein\u2019s time with the film. By the time the duo got around to testing it, they say, they knew they had done something right.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think our director\u2019s cut was testing better than most of the FD movies when they were finished,\u201d says Lipovsky. \u201cSo we were already on a really good path, which opened up the conversation for doing some additional photography.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDoing so allowed the filmmakers to go back and add more gore to certain sequences, tinker with the ending, and heightening some of the character work. The moment Lipovsky sensed that he and his partner would be on a \u201crocket ship\u201d ascent with the film was when they took a meeting with Warner Bros. Motion Picture chairs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy and dozens of other studio staffers to discuss tracking, three or four weeks out from the film\u2019s opening.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe marketing person says, \u2018We\u2019ve left all horror comps behind. We\u2019re now tracking against things like Dune and King Kong and Godzilla,’\u201d Lipovsky recalls. \u201cThere was this silence, and Adam and I were like, \u2018That seems big.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWarner Bros. actually showed great confidence in Bloodlines from very early on, the filmmakers suggest, electing to lock down IMAX screens for its release when they turned in previs for the film\u2019s opening sequence. Still, as much as the studio had total belief in the picture\u2019s box office potential, they tempered expectations for the filmmakers when it came to critical reception.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor the franchise traditionally, reviews have been really bad,\u201d Lipovsky says. \u201cSo they they said, \u2018It\u2019s going to do well, it\u2019s going to make lots of money, but we\u2019re going to embargo [reviews] until the last second.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe studio needn\u2019t have worried. Solidifying its place as one of the 20 highest-grossing horror films of all time, with over $315 million worldwide, Final Destination Bloodlines also received stellar reviews, with many calling the film out as the franchise\u2019s best. Overachieving in this respect, Lipovsky and Stein even received a Directors Guild of Canada Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for their work.<\/p>\n

\t\tCRUISING ON OPENING WEEKEND\t<\/p>\n

\n\tLipovsky and Stein spent opening weekend driving all over L.A., from AMC Burbank 16 to the Alamo and Regal downtown, to \u201cspy\u201d on audiences and see how they were responding to the film. By the end of that weekend, De Luca and Abdy called to offer congratulations, setting a meeting with Chris Columbus that led to a deal for them to co-write the studio\u2019s priority title Gremlins 3<\/a>. In subsequent weeks, they got to sit down with many more of their filmmaking idols and luxuriate in their praise \u2014 from Sam Raimi to Kathleen Kennedy, Arnold Schwarzenegger, M. Night Shyamalan, Jason Reitman, and Edgar Wright.<\/p>\n

\n\tStein recalls telling Wright, \u201cThere are shots in the movie that we stole from you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLipovsky describes this period as \u201ccomplete insanity\u201d \u2014 something the pair couldn\u2019t possibly have prepared for mentally. \u201cI\u2019ve had moments where you do something and it works well, but it very quickly dies off. It\u2019s sort of like, oh, people like the movie \u2014 and then something new happens,\u201d he says. \u201cI kept expecting all that attention to die off very quickly, but it just kept building and building, and it\u2019s still going on, basically. Every day, we\u2019re meeting people responsible for creating everything that we love in cinema for the last 40 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most gratifying feedback would have to have been from Spielberg, who is now in business with the filmmakers on Gremlins 3, coming full circle from On the Lot. Spielberg, Stein reiterates, \u201chas been our inspiration since from the beginning of our sentience as human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring that meeting, Stein recalls, Spielberg essentially said, \u201cOn the Lot was really important to me, and I\u2019m so proud of you guys and everything you\u2019ve accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tNEW GIGS\t<\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond praise from filmmaking titans, of course, the new Final Destination\u2018s reception has netted Lipovsky and Stein jobs. Many of them, in fact. Naturally, the pair had right of first refusal on the the seventh Final Destination, though they felt that they\u2019d exhausted their ideas for the franchise by the time they\u2019d wrapped on Bloodlines, leaving it all on the field. In all candor, they were also excited about the opportunity to work on new things, after spending three years on the film, in a process delayed by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023 \u2014 the second major Hollywood labor stoppage they\u2019d faced since On the Lot.<\/p>\n

\n\tThus, the pair passed on another Final Destination, though they have to give the Warner Bros. team full credit \u2014 for their trust, their open collaboration on Bloodlines, and for making every effort to help the film succeed. Stein remembers studio chief De Luca being so excited about the project, he said he wanted to experience it for the first time with an audience, eschewing the process of reviewing dailies.<\/p>\n

\n\tDe Luca\u2019s only note for the directors? \u201cMake it gnarly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStein also specifically credits Warner Bros. with offering him and Lipovsky a window into the intricacies of the project\u2019s budget. \u201cWe were very grateful to the production team that led us into that process. Because we know a lot of times directors aren\u2019t led into the budgeting granularity,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we really think that that part of the process is part of the creative process. Because what you prioritize in terms of budget is what ends up on screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWithin 30 days of Bloodlines\u2018 release, Lipovksy and Stein were sent a whopping 100 scripts to review, going through a painstaking process to figure out what they did, in fact, want to do next. In concert with their team \u2014 consisting of Adam Levine & Michael Bitar at Verve and Ground Control\u2019s Scott Glassgold \u2014 they\u2019ve so far netted out at eight deals across almost every major studio, with more to come.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to Gremlins 3, projects that have been reported on so far include The Earthling<\/a>, an adaptation of the short story by Jonathan Marty, which landed at Columbia Pictures following a heated bidding war, with the duo on board to direct. Eric Heisserer\u2019s Chronology and Glassgold\u2019s 12:01 Films will produce that one. There\u2019s also Long Lost<\/a>, a project based on a short story by Colin Bannon that landed at Universal. They\u2019ll also direct that one \u2014 billed as What Lies Beneath meets Rosemary\u2019s Baby \u2014 with Spielberg, Simon Kinberg and Glassgold producing.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother deal freshly signed\u2014 which we just reported on yesterday \u2014 is for the pair to direct Paramount\u2019s The Traveler<\/a>, a sci-fi family drama that Lee Isaac Chung had been attached to helm pre-Skydance-Paramount merger, as we first reported. Lipovsky and Stein first read a draft of the script six years ago, when the project was set up at MGM, and connected with it so deeply that Lipovsky has kept checking in on its status with his agents every six months.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe second it became available,\u201d the director says, \u201cwe were in there the next day pitching our hearts out to be on that film. Because it was the one that got away six years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUnlike many of the projects Lipovsky and Stein are attached to, The Traveler isn\u2019t based on well-known IP \u2014 it\u2019s based on a novel by Joseph Eckert that hasn\u2019t yet been published. \u201cIt\u2019s got everything we love in terms of an original sci-fi story that is very grounded, in terms of character, but has a very elevated theme of what it\u2019s trying to say,\u201d says Stein, who compares the potential of the film to what Denis Villeneuve accomplished with the likes of Arrival.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Lipovsky & Stein\u2019s forthcoming slate naturally consists primarily of big studio titles, given how successful their first big studio film was, they clarify that they\u2019re not making their choices based on the size of a budget. In fact, earlier this year, the pair quietly reaffirmed their commitment to storytelling they\u2019re passionate about, of any scope, when they wrapped production on Freaks 2<\/a>. The filmmakers returned to expand on the world of their indie passion project as writers, directors and producers, with production taking place between the completion of post on Bloodlines and the beginning of their press cycle for the film.<\/p>\n

\t\tFROM HERE\t<\/p>\n

\n\tReflecting on the future, Stein and Lipovsky admit that there\u2019s an \u201cimmense\u201d sense of pressure on their part to deliver now, whether the project they\u2019re tackling be big or small \u2014 based on iconic IP or not.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve had ups and downs \u2014 moments that things went well and things that didn\u2019t,\u201d Lipovsky reiterates, \u201cand so we know how incredibly precious this moment is and how fortunate we are to be in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the end of the day, of course, all the pair can do is focus on the work \u2014 and that, they are doing. The goal, simply expressed, is to continue creating \u201ctheatrical communal experiences for the whole world that change what people think is possible with genre\u201d \u2014 films that make people \u201cfeel things,\u201d Lipovsky says, \u201cand make them laugh and cry and scream and want to see more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven the directors\u2019 affinity for genre, Lipovsky says, \u201cAll the movies we\u2019re looking at are horror, sci-fi, fantasy, all in that space, which is everything that we love. But we want to do something new with it that will surprise people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever in search of the next big thing, Hollywood got it when Final Destination Bloodlines arrived in theaters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[175592,88,37677,176188,38075,176189,206,176190,176191,175593,146870],"class_list":{"0":"post-354856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-adam-stein","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-final-destination-bloodlines","11":"tag-freaks-2","12":"tag-gremlins-3","13":"tag-long-lost","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-on-the-lot","16":"tag-the-earthling","17":"tag-the-traveler","18":"tag-zach-lipovsky"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}