Making the Call to Give an Eerie Ethan Hawke-Starring Horror Hit a Sequel: Scott Derrickson Chats 'Black Phone 2'

A snowy camp, crosses, bad dreams, creepy houses, lurking shadows, ringing phones and an immensely unsettling mask: welcome to the world of Black Phone 2. Four years after writer/director Scott Derrickson (The Gorge) adapted a short story by Joe Hill — an author with a hefty horror pedigree as the son of Stephen King — into The Black Phone to box-office success, he's now helming his first sequel to his own work. Derrickson began his feature career on follow-up flicks courtesy of 2000's Urban Legends: Final Cut (which he co-penned) and Hellraiser: Inferno (which he directed), but was absent from the hot seat when his Sinister and Doctor Strange continued their stories.

A second Black Phone film wasn't originally the plan, though. For fans of the first feature, 2025's return to the movie's world also raises a question within its narrative. In the just-dropped first trailer for Black Phone 2, however, Ethan Hawke's (Leave the World Behind) villainous The Grabber utters a pivotal line to Mason Thames' (Monster Summer) Finney Blake, who survived his clutches the first time around: "you of all people know that dead is just a word".

How important is that sentiment to Black Phone 2? "Very essential and fundamental is my answer to that," Derrickson tells Concrete Playground. Audiences will find out how and why for themselves in the best horror-movie month on every annual calendar, with the film set to reach cinemas Down Under on Thursday, October 16, 2025. For now, though, the picture's initial trailer teases snowball fights, a stint at the Alpine Lake Youth Camp, photos of other kids and blood. Also featured: The Grabber asking "did you think our story was over?" before stating "vengeance is mine".

In The Black Phone, The Grabber did what his name suggests: he snatched up children. Circa 1978, Finney, his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw, The Curse of the Necklace) and their friends were already scared of his insidious presence, too, before Finney became his next target. Back to things living up to their monikers: yes, there was a black phone, disconnected yet still ringing, offering a link to The Grabber's prior victims. It wasn't just Hawke getting nefarious that made the movie a hit and piqued viewer interest for more, but also its full impressive cast, immersive tale, and the expert sense of tension cultivated by The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Deliver Us From Evil alum Derrickson.

With Black Phone 2, a few years have passed on-screen as well — which meant that Derrickson could find his ideal way into a Black Phone sequel. He wasn't interested in the kind of next effort that just repeats the first, so the fact that Thames and McGraw are now older was pivotal. Black Phone 2 is "a high-school coming-of-age movie instead of a middle-school coming-of-age movie", then, he explains. Now that he's focusing on teenage characters, that does indeed enable him to heighten some of the horror elements, including gore.

"Absolutely. All true. That's very perceptive. And yeah, I think a high-school horror film requires a certain degree of intensity and violence that a middle-school horror film really doesn't want or need," Derrickson told us.

Alongside Hawke, Thames and McGraw, Jeremy Davies (Adventures of the Naked Umbrella) and Miguel Mora (So Help Me Todd) are also back. Getting Hawke onboard in the beginning, even after Derrickson had directed him in Sinister, wasn't assured, but The Black Phone was all the better for his efforts. For Thames, Black Phone 2 arrives in what's already a huge year, given that he plays Hiccup in the live-action How to Train Your Dragon. We also chatted with Derrickson about the franchise's core casting, how the second movie came about, his essentials for the sequel, the approach when you're stepping back into a film's world and that oh-so-key skill of dripping unease through a horror flick.

On Whether Making Sequel to The Black Phone Was Initially the Plan

"After the first movie, I didn't feel obliged to make a sequel. The studio, as soon as the movie was a hit, was asking me 'will you please make a sequel?'.

And I didn't feel necessarily that I wanted to do that. I didn't have any ideas at that point. And it started, the idea for Black Phone 2 started, with an email from Joe Hill — with my friend Joe, he sent me an email and he said 'hey, I have an idea for a sequel', and he wrote out this pitch.

I didn't respond to all of it, but there was an idea, a central idea in it, that I thought was fantastic that I'd never thought of. So I began to sort of noodle on that idea — and then, as I was toying with the idea, I started to realise that if I went and made another movie first, then by the time I finished that film these kids that I've had loved so much, and did such a good job in the in the first movie, would be in high school. And so I thought 'I'm going to go do that'.

So I told the studio I would do the sequel, but I'm going to go make another movie first — because I wanted to make a high-school coming-of-age movie instead of a middle-school coming-of-age movie.

And so it's been a little bit of a wait, but that was intentional, because I wanted these kids to be older. Mason, when we shot this, was 17 — and Maddie was 15. And both are in high school, and that's a very different kind of film and a very different genre to work in."

The Black Phone

On Casting Ethan Hawke as The Grabber — and Getting Him to Agree to Play a Villain

"I wrote the first movie without him even knowing anything about it. And I sent him the script, and he told me before he read it, he said 'look, I don't really do villains. I don't play villains. I probably won't do this'.

And then that night, he left me a voicemail saying one of the lines of The Grabber in The Grabber's voice. And I thought 'oh, that's all it was'. I knew that that was his way of saying he was going to do it.

And I think he really loved the movie. So when it came to doing a sequel, I did the same thing. I sent him the script, and he told me he was very nervous to read it because he had never done a sequel. And I said 'what about the Before Sunrise movies? You made three of those'. He goes 'yeah, but I wrote those. That doesn't count'.

But he read the script and was so excited afterwards. And it was just a very similar story — he read it, and called me immediately after and said 'I love this. I think it's great'. And we scheduled the movie right away."

On the Importance of This Being a Sequel That Continues the Story with the Same Characters, Not One That Basically Remakes the First Film

"I didn't want to make the same movie again. And I think that sequels that disappoint are sequels that try to do the same thing, only bigger — or the same thing, only more. I knew that I would want to make a very different kind of movie, but I also probably wouldn't have considered doing a sequel of any kind if it didn't involve those characters.

Because I love those characters. I love those kids. They're all really good actors, and the idea of being able to make a movie with characters who are in a different stage of life and played by actors who were in a different stage of life — Mason was 17 when we shot this and Maddie McGraw was 15. And Miguel Mora comes back as well in this movie. And it was really a delight to be able to, again, tell a different kind of story about a different stage of life.

And I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't with all those same characters."

On How Mason Thames' Career Has Blossomed Since The Black Phone, Including Black Phone 2 and Playing Hiccup in the Live-Action How to Train Your Dragon

"It's so wonderful to watch. And part of the reason that it's so wonderful is because Mason is a kid who really has his head on his shoulders. He's not seduced by the fame. He's not interested in celebrity.

He told me, he said 'if I could get rid of all my social media, I would'. He said 'the only reason I keep it is because it's important to studios for the marketing of their movies'.

He's just got such a solid perspective and grounded point of view for such a young man — for somebody who's, I think he's 18 now. It couldn't happen to a better kid is what I'm saying.

So it's wonderful to know that I gave him, I just sort of discovered his raw talents and gave him the shot that I did. He did such a good job and he does an amazing job in this movie as well."

On What Goes Into Cultivating Unease, Dread and Disquiet in a Horror Film for Derrickson

"I think that's the essential thing about the horror genre. It's not gore. It's not acts of violence. Ultimately, what makes a horror film a horror film is tone.

There are some horror films that are very, very scary without any violence. And there are some very violent movies that aren't very scary. And the difference is that dreadful tone.

I think that I'm interested in that aspect of horror more than jump scares, more than gore. The horror films that I love are films that crawl under my skin and have a captivating tone. And the best ones stay with me after the movie.

I remember when I saw The Witch — it took me three days to shake the feeling of that movie from me."

The Black Phone

On the Approach When You're Stepping Back Into an Existing World with a Horror Sequel

"I think that, including those early things that I did, the goal is to try to bring something fresh and original while maintaining the elements that our audience wants to see return.

And that's always a tough thing to do as a director, but you have to be in tune with your audience and understand 'well, these are the things they definitely want to see. They want to see this. They want to see that. They want this to happen. They want these elements from the original film within their franchise picture'.

The Black Phone

But at the same time, what they can't tell you is that they want most of it to be fresh. They want to be surprised. They don't want to watch the same movie again.

And so as a director, it's about threading that balance. And in this movie, I think it was the characters that they wanted to see returning. And the fact that the movie has a kind of tonal shift, I think is something they're going to find satisfying."

Black Phone 2 opens in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, October 16, 2025.