The Grabber returned from the dead in “Black Phone 2” but could this end up leading to a trilogy in the series?
When the first trailer for “Black Phone 2” dropped, The Grabber (the child serial killer played by Ethan Hawke) told his former victim Finney that he knows better than anyone that dead is just a word.
In the sequel, the Grabber returns from the depths of hell to seek revenge on the boy who killed him by haunting his sister Gwen’s dreams and attempting to murder her since she served as a conduit to tracking him down and finding her brother after he had been kidnapped. While “The Black Phone” dabbled in the supernatural with Gwen’s dreams and premonitions as well as that mysterious phone that allowed Finney to talk to the Grabber’s other victims so he might survive, the sequel took a much deeper dive on the subject.
With The Grabber effectively haunting Gwen’s dreams like Freddy Krueger from “Nightmare on Elm Street,” there’s no telling how many time he could come back so is it possible that “Black Phone 3” could happen sooner or later?
“What I can say is that my attitude toward a sequel is that there’s really no justification for making a sequel unless you are genuinely attempting to make a movie that’s better than the first movie you’re making a sequel to,” director Scott Derrickson told Variety. “If you’re going to make a third one, it needs to be better than the second one, which is better than the first one. Very few films do that.
“Looking back on the history of cinema, I think Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” trilogy and George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” trilogy are probably the only two trilogies of movies where they’re all three great movies and get progressively better. What would be important to me in considering any ideas is that it’s just not a retread, and that we don’t feel like we’re seeing, “Oh, now we establish this new rule for the Grabber. So let’s just do that again.” That’s the only thing I couldn’t do.”
Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill actually had no intention of returning for “Black Phone 2” but a call from Joe Hill, who penned the book that the film is based upon, pitching them with a premise of the Grabber calling Finney from Hell was the only catalyst they needed to make a second film.
Thus far, “Black Phone 2” has earned nearly $85 million at the box office on a $30 million budget so it’s tough to imagine that the studio behind the film (Blumhouse and Universal) wouldn’t be on board for a third film.
Now it’s just up to Derrickson and Cargill to decide if they want to make another one!
