Couple this with SpaceX, and you got yourself a brilliant parody against Musk.
First ever manned SpaceX launch to Mars finally happens after the company succeeded several dozens of times unmanned, with the statistics finally in favor of a safe manned launch
Coupled with something like Grok as a digital assistant for the astronauts
the premonition starts for one of the protag astronauts, maybe around 5-7 characters + someone from ground control
premonition has a botched launch that gradually explodes as each astronaut suffers a horrific death uniquely during each stage of the flight, that ends up fully exploding either within view from earth, or just as the flight almost exits the exosphere
camera zooms in on the floating head of the protag, does the iconic eye zoom out
they're still in countdown, protag erupts and requests they stop the launch
Then you work your way from there with the typical franchise formula. During and after premonition, Grok could totally be a great stand in for all sorts of quirky personality traits for Death. It can also tell them everything Bludworth taught previous premonition survivors.