The Black Phone 2 director describes the sequel as a high school coming-of-age film

Back in 2021, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, and director Scott Derrickson brought us an adaptation of the Joe Hill short story The Black Phone (check out our review HERE) that appeared to tell a complete story that would stand on its own… but the film was made on a budget of around $16 million and earned over $160 million at the global box office. So, on October 17, 2025, we’ll be getting The Black Phone 2. In a video that was shown to New York Comic Con attendees during the Blumhouse panel there, Derrickson said that he sees the sequel as a high school coming-of-age film.

Based on a short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone 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 first film with C. Robert Cargill, and Derrickson and Cargill have written the screenplay for The Black Phone 2 as well. They’re also producing the sequel with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Ryan Turek. 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. Ethan Hawke (Moon Knight) will be reprising the role of the child-killer known as The Grabber. One new addition to the cast is Demián Bichir of The Hateful Eight.

Blum told NYCC attendees, “When did 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 couldn’t make it to the Comic Con because he’s in pre-production on The Black Phone 2 in Toronto, but in a pre-recorded video that was shown, he said, “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 added that, “I’m hoping to make a film as good as, if not better than, the first one.“

Are you looking forward to finding out what’s going to happen in The Black Phone 2? Does the “high school coming-of-age film” description sound interesting to you? Let us know by leaving a comment below.