Back in October, Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions announced that The Black Phone 2 will be receiving a theatrical release on June 27, 2025, marking the “launch of a sinister new franchise.” Last month, it was revealed that the sequel will see the return of Mason Thames (How to Train Your Dragon) as Finney Shaw, Madeleine McGraw (Secrets of Sulphur Springs) as Finney’s sister Gwen, Jeremy Davies (Justified) as their dad Terrence, and Miguel Mora, whose only previous credit is The Black Phone, as Robin, a friend of Finney’s who was killed in the first movie. Plus, yes, Ethan Hawke (Moon Knight) will be reprising the role of the child-killer known as The Grabber. Now producer Ryan Turek has confirmed to ComicBook.com that The Black Phone director Scott Derrickson is coming back to direct The Black Phone 2.
Turek said, “Yeah, Scott’s coming back. I think it’s too early to talk about anything else regarding that, but yeah [Derrickson’s returning].” Derrickson had previously told the site, “I can tell you this much, I wouldn’t make a Black Phone sequel without Ethan. I don’t think there’d be any point in doing that.” So it seems that Ethan Hawke agreeing to come back to play The Grabber again also got Derrickson locked in as director.
Details on the plot and exactly what the characters will be doing this time around are being kept under wraps.
Based on a Joe Hill short story, The Black Phone (check out our review HERE) centered on Finney Shaw, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, who is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer’s previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney. If you’d like to read the short story that The Black Phone is based on, it can be found in Hill’s collection 20th Century Ghosts, which you can buy HERE.
Derrickson wrote the screenplay for the film with C. Robert Cargill, and we already knew that Derrickson and Cargill are writing the screenplay for The Black Phone 2 as well. They’re also producing the sequel with Turek and Blumhouse’s Jason Blum.
Whether or not Derrickson would be directing again was in question because when a sequel to his film Sinister was made, he wrote the script for Sinister 2 but passed the helm over to Ciarán Foy. And, of course, he ended up stepping away from the sequel to his Marvel movie Doctor Strange over creative differences, with Sam Raimi taking over as director on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. So The Black Phone 2 will be his first time directing a sequel to one of his own films. (It’s not his first time directing a sequel, though, as he did contribute to the horror anthology sequel V/H/S/85, and made his feature directorial debut with Hellraiser: Inferno.)
Are you glad to hear that Scott Derrickson will be directing The Black Phone 2 in addition to writing and producing it? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
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