Last Updated on January 31, 2025

Director Scott Derrickson’s adaptation of the Joe Hill short story The Black Phone was well-received by critics and the general audience alike. 83% of the reviews listed on Rotten Tomatoes are positive, and more importantly it earned over $161 million at the box office on a budget of just under $20 million. The Black Phone doesn’t lend itself to being sequelized all that well. The story stands on its own and is wrapped up by the time the end credits start rolling… but when something is as successful as this movie was, that opens the sequel door. Indeed, Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions has announced that The Black Phone 2 will be released on October 17, 2025 (having moved back from a June release date) – and the intention is that this sequel will be the “launch of a sinister new franchise.”
Here’s Everything We Know About The Black Phone 2
Before we get started, a reminder of what The Black Phone was all about. Mason Thames starred as 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. Madeleine McGraw had a memorable role as Finney’s sister Gwen, who has psychic visions in her dreams (just like their mom did), and Ethan Hawke played the mask-wearing child killer, The Grabber.
The Black Phone 2: The Cast
It seems like most of the cast is coming back for the sequel, including Mason Thames as Finney Shaw, Madeleine McGraw as Finney’s sister Gwen, Jeremy Davies 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, Ethan Hawke is reprising the role of the child-killer known as The Grabber. But how is that possible, given the fact that he was killed off at the end of the last film? We don’t know yet.
New additions include Demián Bichir of The Hateful Eight and Arianna Rivas, who previously had a supporting role in the comedy Prom Dates, which was released through the Hulu streaming service, and has her first lead role in the upcoming Jason Statham action thriller A Working Man (formerly known as Levon’s Trade).
What’s it About:
While no one knows anything about the premise yet, one way to bring The Grabber back and try to build him into a horror icon would be to turn him into a supernatural being who continues messing with children from beyond the grave. He could target a new batch of victims, or the idea of a supernatural Grabber could be mixed with the idea of focusing on Finney and Gwen. Maybe his evil spirit is still lingering around the siblings. Maybe they have to find a way to vanquish him, or maybe he just appears to them in their dreams and visions while they deal with a different situation. Either way, it’s difficult to imagine this approach working out in the long run, because it doesn’t seem like “Play a Horror Icon in Multiple Sequels” would be on Ethan Hawke’s To Do list.
Here’s a less appealing option – albeit one they don’t seem to be planning with the first sequel (the studio has mentioned many times that they plan on making this a franchise). Make it an anthology series. The anthology approach would introduce a whole new cast of characters. No Finney or Gwen, no Grabber. Instead, we’d follow other people who find themselves in a life-or-death situation and get help from beyond, just like Finney getting his supernatural phone calls while he was stuck in The Grabber’s basement. We could get a whole series of “Black Phone” movies that are only connected to each other by the set-up of spirits helping people out of a bad spot. If that happens, it won’t be with the first sequel, as Blumhouse has managed to entice all the original folks back for The Black Phone 2.
Will They Make It A Prequel About The Grabber?
So if they’re bringing The Grabber back as a flesh and blood character, many assume there has to be a prequel element to the film. However, this could make it pretty dark and depressing, because there’s no way to get around the fact that The Grabber got away with his crimes for a long time before finally being stopped. Maybe it will focus on the backstory of one of his victims. Time will tell.
Who’s Directing it
Scott Derrickson directed The Black Phone from a screenplay he wrote with C. Robert Cargill, and Derrickson and Cargill have written the screenplay for The Black Phone 2 as well, and Derrickson is back at the helm. He and Cargill are also producing the sequel with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Ryan Turek.
Blum told New York Comic Con attendees, “When the movie did well, [I asked the filmmakers], ‘Can we figure out a sequel? Some directors say yes, some directors say no. Scott said, ‘Let me and Cargill think about it.’” Derrickson and Cargill eventually told him they could make a sequel if Hawke and the rest of the original cast could return. Blum said, “And that was music to my ears.“
Derrickson added, “I didn’t really feel any obligation to do a sequel to The Black Phone, but I got excited by an idea that [author] Joe Hill sent me shortly after the release of the first film. And what I can also tell you is that in the same way that The Black Phone was a middle school coming-of-age film, this is a high school coming-of-age film.” He went on to say, “I’m hoping to make a film as good as, if not better than, the first one.“
Filming began at the start of November 2024 and wrapped in mid-January 2025.
Do you have any ideas for how a sequel to The Black Phone could work? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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