The Black Phone

The Black Phone is a 2021 American coming-of-age supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson and written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, who both produced with Jason Blum. It is an adaptation of the 2004 short story of the same name by Joe Hill. The film stars Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, James Ransone, and Ethan Hawke. In the film, an abducted teenager (Thames) uses a mysterious telephone to communicate with the previous victims of his captor (Hawke). Derrickson's departure from directing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness led him to The Black Phone, a project he and Cargill had already planned on making. Filming took two months in Wilmington and surrounding counties in the state of North Carolina. The film premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 25, 2021, and was theatrically released by Universal Pictures on June 24, 2022. It has grossed $152 million and received generally positive reviews from critics for its performances and faithfulness to the source material.