David Richard Ellis was an American film director and stunt performer born in Santa Monica, California in 1952. His credits included dozens of films and television series including National Lampoon's Vacation, Baywatch, Lethal Weapon, and Patriot Games.

Final Destination is an American horror franchise that includes six films, two comic books, and nine novels. It is based on an unproduced spec script by Jeffrey Reddick, originally written for The X-Files television series and was distributed by New Line Cinema. All of its five films are set around the premise of a small group of people who escape impending death after one individual sees a sudden premonition and warns them about a major disaster that is about to happen. After avoiding their foretold deaths seen in the visions, the survivors are later killed one by one in bizarre accidents caused by an unseen force by creating complicated chains of cause and effect, resembling Rube Goldberg machines, and then read omens sent by another unseen entity in order to again avert their deaths.