How ‘Black Phone 2’ Resurrected the Grabber

Any hit movie will naturally spark talk of a sequel—especially a hit horror movie, thanks to the genre’s fondness for franchises that rack up multiple entries. But in the case of 2021’s The Black Phone, the story hit a pretty definitive endpoint when kidnapped Finney (Mason Thames) tapped into everything he’d learned from his ghostly allies and defeated the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) once and for all. Except, he didn’t, because Black Phone 2 is open in theaters today. How did that happen?

Director Scott Derrickson, who wasn’t originally planning on a sequel, revealed the tempting pitch he got from Joe Hill—author of the original short story the first film was based on—to the Hollywood Reporter: “The Grabber calls Finn from hell.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, the Grabber is on the other line. Sure, that’s great, and it opens up a lot of possibilities.’†Supernatural possibilities.

The Grabber’s connection to Finney (called Finn in the sequel, now that he’s a bit older) and his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw)—beyond the events of the first film, that is—is a new reveal in the sequel that we won’t spoil here. But the twist is something that helped Derrickson further get his head around extending the story.

“It got me thinking about story possibilities in a way that I couldn’t really stop. Having finished it now, it’s a big enough reveal in a movie that doesn’t have a lot of twists and turns … and knowing that we were going to build toward that in some form, it gave us an emotional spinal cord for the movie,†he said. “The most difficult thing in the process of constructing the rest of the skeleton on that spinal cord was how to involve the Grabber and bring him back from the dead in a frightening way and in the lives of these kids. So it took a lot of time and effort and discussion to figure out how we were going to do that.â€

THR asked if a third film could be on the way to make a Black Phone trilogy, and Derrickson didn’t rule it out, though he said, “I haven’t spent any time thinking about a third movie. I think it’s important not to do that.â€

He continued, “Once you’re trying to plot out sequels and expand into a cinematic universe, you’re inevitably, by definition, limiting story possibilities. So I just haven’t thought about it. I really wanted to make this movie, and my goal was to make a better movie than the first one. So I haven’t considered what the franchise could be, and it’s just not something that’s really entered my mind yet.â€

Black Phone 2 is in theaters now.

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