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It’s hard to change a game that’s been running for 50 seasons. For this installment of Variety’s Making a Scene presented by HBO Max, the team behind CBS’ 50th season of “Survivor” came together to break down a moment
that did just that: a coin flip created by YouTuber Mr. Beast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) that doubled the winner’s prize money to $2 million. After the results of “Survivor 50” were announced, winner Aubry Bracco, host Jeff Probst, EP Matt Van Wagenen and the coin-flipper himself, Rick Devens, explained the full process from the opportunity being presented to the tense tribal council as the flip took place. “Season 50 was in the hands of the fans,” Van Wagenen tells Variety. “And someone who was a big fan of our show was MrBeast. We were trying to figure out something that still felt very ‘Survivor’ but could also be a little MrBeast.” After a little brainstorming, the “Survivor” team and Donaldson landed on the coin flip, but they knew it had to be “do or die,” with Donaldson agreeing to put in a million dollars. The conditions were simple: if the participating contestant called the coin flip correctly, the prize money would increase to $2 million. If they didn’t, the amount would stay at a million, and the contestant would go home as part of that night’s tribal council. The castaways only found out about the twist at tribal council after spending the whole day back at camp debating what it could be. “A lot of us had seen ‘Beast Games’ and went, ‘He likes to bribe people. He likes to offer up money for you to leave the game,” says Devens. “Now that seems totally against the spirit of ‘Survivor,’ because Jeff hates quitters. We were all sitting there going: ‘How much money would it take for you to leave the game?'” Do-or-die twists had appeared previously on Season 41 and 42, and Probst wasn’t a fan of them due to a player’s fate being up to chance. So, they looped all the contestants in through the food auction challenge and letters from loved ones, making them all “complicit” in whatever chaos was to come. The coin itself was handmade by the “Survivor” art department on location, with a MrBeast logo on one side and a mixture of “Survivor” elements on the other. A lawyer test-flipped the coin the night before tribal council, during which Probst realized the uneven ground could pose some problems. If the coin landed on its edge, they’d have to tell players to re-flip. “The lawyer says: There is no re-flip. Our contract is a one-flip agreement,” recalls Probst. She ran off set and, after some renegotiation, she came back and told them they were in the clear. None of that came to pass, since Devens — who volunteered to do the flip within seconds — landed the coin firmly on heads. “I was so positive that if I got to flip that coin, it was going to land on whatever I called,” says Devens, who shocked Probst by volunteering so fast. The host admits, “I thought: ‘You all are going to have to persuade somebody to flip this coin.'” Bracco thought about flipping the coin, but “really listened to her gut and intuition” when giving Devens the go-ahead. “He just has this magic about him,” she says, adding that her gut told her Devens was “born to flip this coin.” Nerves were on edge all around, especially in production: What if the cameras didn’t capture the flip?
“We knew that we couldn’t miss it,” says Van Wagenen. Plus, tribal council is dark — there aren’t big lights, it’s only lit by fire. The team usually only brings in extra camera operators for the final tribal council, but they brought in a DP to shoot the close-up and had a few special cameras, including a handheld one whose only job was: “Follow that coin.”
“It was the most cinematic flip ever. I couldn’t do it again if I tried 50 times,” says Devens, who remembers the anticipation on everyone’s faces as the coin rolled around on the floor.
Unseen by the audience, fellow contestant Ozzy Lusth was the first to jump up from his place on the bench, yelling, “It’s heads!”, which is what Devens called.
It was an “indescribable moment” for Probst to hold the coin up and show the cameras which side it landed on. “In a way, it felt inevitable. We put so much time, energy, love and thought into this season… This thing has to land on the side he called.”
Devens was gifted the coin at the season finale (after almost a year of asking for it) and carries it with him. “Aubry, who has $2 million instead of $1 million, might think it’s her lucky coin also,” he jokes. “But since she gets the money, I keep the coin.”
