Ethan Hawke will be back as The Grabber on Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone 2, and the filmmaker has revealed on socials that production is now underway on the upcoming sequel.
Universal and Blumhouse will release The Black Phone 2 in theaters on October 17, 2025.
Mason Thames (How to Train Your Dragon, Incoming), Madeleine McGraw (Toy Story 4, Secrets of Sulphur Springs), Jeremy Davies (Justified) and Miguel Mora (The Black Phone) also set to return alongside Hawke. Demián Bichir (The Nun) has also joined the cast.
Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill will be writing and producing the upcoming sequel, with Derrickson directing. The first movie was based on Joe Hill’s short story.
In the first film, Finney (Thames), a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, is abducted by a sadistic killer (Hawke) 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. The film was produced by Derrickson & Cargill’s Crooked Highway and presented by Universal and Blumhouse.
I wrote in my review of The Black Phone for Bloody Disgusting, “Derrickson and Cargill revive the same traits and structure of Sinister to transform Joe Hill’s short into a feature-length nightmare full of ghostly kids, violence, and a trio of unforgettable performances.”
Plot details on the sequel remain scarce as of now, though The Sinister and Doctor Strange filmmaker gave hints in a chat with ComicBook.com. “Joe Hill pitched me a wonderful idea for a sequel to Black Phone that, if this movie does well, I’m gonna do it. He’s got a great idea, I really liked it,” Derrickson told the site back in 2022. “Joe’s very protective and personal about his material, but he came to me with the idea and I was like, ‘That’s how you do a sequel to Black Phone. That’s terrific.’”
The Black Phone scared up $161 million at the worldwide box office last year.
Photo credit: Scott Derrickson