Until quite recently, “The Black Phone” was not the movie Scott Derrickson thought he’d release in 2022. After the box office success of “Doctor Strange” in 2016—still the biggest single-character introduction film in the MCU—Derrickson was ready at the helm for the sequel, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” scheduled for release in May. However, as Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige revealed in an interview with Empire magazine, Derrickson left the project in January 2020 due to the ever-vague term “creative differences,” teeing up what many oddsmakers fancy to be the highest-grossing movie of the year for “Spiderman” and “Evil Dead” director Sam Raimi. Derrickson instead returns to the genre that made his name.
Adapted by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill (writer for “Sinister,” “Doctor Strange,” and Derrickson’s 2021 short “Shadowprowler”) from the short story of the same name by Joe Hill, “The Black Phone” follows Finney Shaw (Mason Thames), a 13-year-old boy bullied by his classmates and abused by his father, in his attempt to escape from the basement of a masked killer called “The Grabber” (Ethan Hawke). Finney’s only hope for survival is an old, disconnected rotary phone on the wall, through which he can communicate with The Grabber’s previous victims.
“The Black Phone” marks the second collaboration between Derrickson and Hawke, having previously worked together on “Sinister.” The supporting cast features Madeleine McGraw (who voiced Bonnie in “Toy Story 4”), Jeremy Davies (Snow in Steven Soderbergh’s “Solaris”), and James Ransone (star of “Tangerine” and season two of “The Wire”).
“The Black Phone” hits cinemas June 24. Watch the trailer below.