The Black Phone Director Reveals His One Condition for Making a Third Film

It’s no exaggeration to say that “The Black Phone” is one of the horror genre’s biggest success stories of the last five years. It was released in 2022 to rapturous reviews and the kind of tremendous profit that only a horror movie can bring in these days. Like nearly all hugely successful films, it got a follow-up: this month’s “Black Phone 2,” which has also been well-received and made nearly $85 million in less than two weeks after its release. But what will happen when Universal Pictures wants to keep the gravy train rolling with a third entry? Director Scott Derrickson wants it understood that he has no intention of trading merit for money.

“The Black Phone” Franchise – A Brief Overview

It may seem odd enough that even a second “Black Phone” exists in the first place. The original film, which was an adaptation of a 2005 short story written by Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill, told the perfectly self-contained tale of young Finney (Mason Thames) being abducted by the sinister, vile Grabber (Ethan Hawke), with his only hope of survival resting on the insights of his psychic younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) and the ghosts of this serial child-killer’s previous victims. Spoiler: “The Black Phone” culminates in Finney’s escape, wherein he fatally turns the tables on the Grabber.

How does one follow up a story that is not only a textbook one-off but also concludes with the death of its mortal human villain, who is so instantly iconic as to become the de facto face of the franchise? As mentioned above, “The Black Phone” features a prominent supernatural element involving the spirits of dead people returning to affect those still living. Derrickson and co. found a way to harness this element for the Grabber’s return: in the style of Freddy Krueger, his deadly ghost now menaces Gwen’s paranormal dreams four years after his demise.

Scott Derrickson on “Black Phone 3”

In an October 20 interview with Variety, director Scott Derrickson made it clear that it was very important to him for “Black Phone 2” to evolve from “The Black Phone” and to feature an assortment of fresh themes and ideas. This emphasis on originality will be just as crucial if he ever decides to make a threequel to “The Black Phone.” “What would be important to me in considering any ideas,” he said, “is that it’s just not a retread, and that we don’t feel like we’re seeing, ‘Oh, now we establish this new rule for the Grabber. So let’s just do that again.’ That’s the only thing I couldn’t do.”

Of course, few self-respecting filmmakers would be proud to make a sequel that merely recycled the storyline and themes of its predecessor. But the bar Derrickson set for himself regarding a second sequel to “The Black Phone” was even more ambitious than that. He also said, “that there’s really no justification for making a sequel unless you are genuinely attempting to make a movie that’s better than the first movie you’re making a sequel to. If you’re going to make a third one, it needs to be better than the second one, which is better than the first one.”

This is a formidable goal for any director to set. In every movie genre, sequels have a broad reputation for coming across as stale in comparison to their predecessors. Such beloved classics as “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Aliens” are lauded as exceptions to the general rule that the sequel is destined to be inferior to the original. Certainly, Derrickson is well aware of this: “Very few films do that,” he observed, before stating that the three films of Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” and George Romero’s “Living Dead” series are likely the only film trilogies in which all three films are both individually great and progressively greater.

Ethan Hawke on “Black Phone 3”

At present, Derrickson and his creative team don’t appear to have any ideas for following up on “Black Phone 2.” Ethan Hawke, however, has his own suggestion on the matter: in an October 17 interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor, who professed not to “believe in sequels, as a theory” but who considers “Black Phone 2” to be an exceptional one, opined that “The Black Phone” does have trilogy potential. He suggested a threequel that would provide more insight into the Grabber, “to let it be a character piece about what made him, who he is now, and how he’s haunting other people’s dreams.”

To be quite frank, this sounds more like an idea for a prequel than a sequel. Either way, will Hawke persuade Derrickson to realize this dream? With “Black Phone 2” having just started its theatrical run, now is certainly too soon to speculate about that.