Warning: This article contains spoilers for Fight or Flight.

Fight or Flight's cliffhanger ending hints at the much wider world around the airplane-set action comedy movie. The project, which was directed by James Madigan from a screenplay by Brooks McLaren and D. J. Cotrona, stars Josh Hartnett as Lucas Reyes, a mercenary who is on the run after a Secret Service assignment gone wrong. His former flame Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) offers him a shot at redemption with one final job: capturing a hacker called The Ghost, whose identity is unknown, and bringing them in alive. They have been traced to a plane flying from Bangkok to San Francisco.

The only catch is that the plane is also full of assassins who want The Ghost dead, so Lucas must find the hacker first and prevent them from being murdered. While the Fight or Flight movie only has a few main characters to keep track of - a roster that also includes Katherine's second-in-command Aaron Hunter (Shadow and Bone star Julian Kostov) and the flight attendant Isha (Bridgerton's Charithra Chandran) - the plot contains many twists and turns along the way as Lucas fights his way through the plane and learns who his true enemies are, leading him to an open-ended finale.

Where Lucas & Isha Are In Fight Or Flight's Ending

The Cliffhanger Finale Finds Them In A New Setting

2025's Fight or Flight ends on a major cliffhanger. After Lucas betrays his employers and refuses to bring The Ghost into custody, he es out. Although the pilots are dead, The Ghost reveals that she has been secretly flying the plane the whole time and that their true destination is "not even close" to San Francisco. When Lucas wakes up, he finds himself in a makeshift hospital room in a building that is under siege. In the chaos of the moment, it is never made clear exactly where the scene is set, though there are some small clues.

The plane [probably] continued west after missing its intended stop in San Francisco...

Lucas wakes up next to a wall covered in children's drawings, which seems to imply that the safe house is an abandoned elementary school. While its location is unknown, it seems likely that the plane continued west after missing its intended stop in San Francisco, as there do not seem to have been any major deviations from the planned flight path up to that point, otherwise the pilots would probably have noticed. This likely places them somewhere in the Pacific, such as Oceania, an island, or the East coast of Asia, depending on how much fuel the plane had left.

The Ghost's Identity In Fight Or Flight Explained

The Hacker's True Identity Is Revealed Early On

It is revealed relatively early on that there is much more to Isha than originally meets the eye. The Bridgerton star's character is actually The Ghost going incognito as a flight attendant. Although she was described to Lucas as a terrorist, once he sees through her guise and begins working alongside her, he learns that she has been working to use her hacking skills for good after being forced to commit atrocities as a child. This cements his commitment to his mission of keeping her identity secret from the plane full of assassins and keeping her alive.

Why Was Lucas Hired To Save Isha?

The Mission's Goal Secretly Changes Midway Through

Some of the biggest twists and turns in the movie involve the mission itself, because Katherine and Aaron are at odds as to the goal of their mission. Aaron is playing both sides because he has learned that The Ghost has developed a supercomputer device that "could disrupt our entire industry" and make him a lot of money. He wants The Ghost dead, so he can take the device for himself, which is why he leaks Lucas' image to the assassins on the plane in an attempt to prevent him from accomplishing his mission of keeping her alive.

Katherine eventually decides to work with Aaron...

Aaron is also revealed to be the person who tipped off the assassins about The Ghost's itinerary in the first place. Although Katherine eventually decides to work with Aaron after learning about the device, she originally wanted The Ghost to be brought in alive.

The reasons for this become more clear when it is revealed that the duo does not work for a government agency, but rather a big tech company called "BlueHype," which runs an app that collects all of its s' data. While The Ghost is a threat to this corporation, which she detests because of its use of child labor, she could also become an asset if they force her to work for them.

Why Katherine Kills Aaron In Fight Or Flight

The Pair Had Just Started Working Together After Being At Odds

Katherine eventually shoots Aaron in the back of the head after he fails her when the plane does not land in San Francisco as planned. The reason for this is laid out in an earlier scene when she describes why she hired him by saying that "you and I are the same... cutthroat." The second he is no longer useful to her, he becomes an impediment to her controlling the device and all of the money it can generate. Her killing him also prevents him from double-crossing her in the future, which she likely anticipates.

"We're Not Done Yet": How Fight Or Flight's Ending Sets Up A Sequel

Will Fight Or Flight 2 Actually Happen?

The penultimate line of Fight or Flight is spoken by Isha, who greets the newly awakened Lucas by saying, “Good news, you’re not dead. Bad news, we’re not done yet," revealing that their ordeal will continue. However, the final line of the movie is spoken by Lucas himself, when he reacts to Isha's pronouncement by saying "oh f--k!" The comedic tone of this moment would seem to suggest that the movie is playing one final cruel joke on its exhausted lead character, making the scene one last gag instead of literally implying that the story will continue in a sequel.

Nevertheless, should the movie become a success in theaters and on video on demand, it is entirely possible that Fight or Flight 2 could happen. If so, it has the perfect opportunity to pick up where the first movie left off. If the next movie follows immediately from that moment, this means that it would have an entirely new setting. While this could expand the action franchise into a much broader world, it seems more likely that the sequel would have them fight their way through a new form of transportation such as a bus, a train, or a boat.

The Real Meaning Of Fight Or Flight

The Action Movie Has Two Key Themes

While the 2025 action-comedy movie is primarily an exercise in pure genre entertainment, there are several major themes bubbling beneath the surface of the screenplay. The theme that is most directly linked to Lucas' journey is the idea that fighting for what's right is always the best call, even when the odds seem stacked against that decision.

Fight or Flight co-screenwriter D.J. Cotrona is better known as an actor, having played the superhero version of Pedro in the Shazam! movies.

Even though Lucas nearly loses his life multiple times while fighting to apprehend The Ghost, he ultimately decides to betray his employer and save Isha, knowing that she actually cares about protecting the disenfranchised (including the child laborers used by the company). This is something that he also believes in wholeheartedly, though Katherine doesn't. This aspect of his personality is revealed in his backstory, when he finds himself on the run after protecting a victim of a diplomat's abuse by beating up said diplomat, who he was hired to protect.

Lucas' employers in Fight or Flight provide the movie with its second key theme. Overall, the screenplay accuses big tech companies of corruption, which ties in with many tech and social media-related controversies that have driven ongoing current events. Additionally, the fact that Katherine shares that she now works at a tech firm because she has "more reach and more power than I ever did at the agency" shows the way that the company controls a huge pool of money and resources that potentially give it even more influence than the political and governmental organizations that are supposedly in power.