By Patrick Cavanaugh - August 12, 2022 12:00 pm EDT

After finding successes with smaller genre projects like The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister, filmmaker Scott Derrickson made the jump into blockbuster filmmaking with Doctor Strange, with his ambitious vision and unconventional approach to the material helping ensure the success of the Sorceror Supreme's debut. Years later, Derrickson has waded back into the waters of intimate, emotional, and unsettling stories with The Black Phone, which is earning some of the best critical reviews of any horror film this year. While it first premiered at Fantastic Fest in September of 2021, it was nearly a year of waiting before it was unleashed on audiences. The Black Phone is out now on Digital HD and hits Blu-ray and DVD on August 16th.

Finney (Mason Thames), a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, is abducted by a sadistic killer (Ethan Hawke) 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. The film is produced by Derrickson & Cargill's Crooked Highway and presented by Universal and Blumhouse and based on a story by Joe Hill.

ComicBook.com caught up with Derrickson to talk about reactions to the film since its release, changes made along the way, and the future of the franchise.

ComicBook.com: The movie premiered more than a year ago, when it was playing Fantastic Fest, and then it finally earned a wide release all this time later. What has it been like for you this past month, seeing the fan feedback and just seeing how much people love this movie?

Scott Derrickson: The thing I say about this business is that it's never what you think it's going to be. It always surprises you. It's always much better or much worse than you think it's going to be. I knew that The Black Phone was a good movie and I knew that the early audiences liked it, but you never know. I was even expecting them to like it and expecting some good critical reaction. I've been pretty shocked at just how well it's done. It's been awesome.

You're just hoping to tell the story that you want to tell and you don't necessarily keep in mind, "This is what I want the audiences to take out of it," because it's going to be open for interpretation. But since there are such effective themes about abuse and bullying and trauma all wrapped up in this story of ghosts and a serial killer, was there one message that you really hoped resonated most with audiences? Or is it whatever anyone gets out of this, that's a valid thing to take away?

It's always about what anyone gets out of it. I never think much about themes. I mean, I'm with Flannery O'Connor. Flannery O'Connor said ... She was asked about the theme of one of her stories and she said, "If you can easily state the theme of a story, you can be sure it's not a very good one," which I think is fantastic. And I think that tends to be true. I don't start with any themes, either.

I think that the meaning for me in my creative process, theme has to be something that emerges out of the writing process and out of the exploration process of writing. Theme has to be a discovery. When I wrote Doctor Strange, when I sat down to work on that script, I had no idea that time was going to become such a major theme in that movie. It just emerged as, "Oh, this is really all about time," with the watch and Kaecilius' incredible speech about time, even all the way, ending in a time loop, all of that.

So with The Black Phone, it's all very personal for me. All the things you're referencing are things that were autobiographical and taken straight out of my childhood in north Denver in the late '70s. But I think that in putting it all together with Joe's story, I think that what emerged is that it really is about childhood trauma and about the traumatic nature of childhood. You don't have to have abuse in your past, like I do, or like those kids do, for childhood to be traumatic. I think childhood is traumatic for everybody. But I also think that the other thing about it is there's something in it that's very powerful and thematic about the resilience of children. These are things that emerged for me out of just the creative process and I do think a lot of people are getting a lot out of that. But what it is specifically that anyone takes away from the film is entirely up to them. 

I know that you've said that not only is this the most personal movie that you've made, but it's also your favorite and how you just weren't getting sick of watching it over and over again. Whether it be The Black Phone or just other films that you've made, when you watch them and they're all completed, are you the type of filmmaker who's a perfectionist and you'll watch The Black Phone, you'll watch Doctor Strange, watch Sinister and think, "Ah, I really wish I just had one more week to really fine tune this," or is it more, "This is the absolute best version of this story,"? 

Well, let me put it this way. I finished the movie and we screened it at Fantastic Fest, like you said. Was that a year ago? Almost a year ago now. And then screened Beyond Fest. We had our January-February release date, which we moved because of COVID. I argued for the summer. I thought it would do well as summer horror. And about four, five weeks before the film was released and the international masters had already been shipped, I became so convinced that there was a line of ADR that was going to make a difference in the movie, that I called the head of Universal and said, "You have to let me fix this line."

Cooper Samuelson at Blumhouse was a real support, because when I explained it to him, he said, "I think that's going to really matter." It cost them a lot of money to do it, but they let me go get the actor and ADR and fix this one particular line. They paid to put it in all the new masters. So I didn't let go of that until just a couple of weeks before the release date. 

Now I'm curious, what was that line?

Oh, I'm not going to say.

No, I'm not going to say, but I'll tell you what, the reason why I did it was because a couple of critics had made a comment and I had heard enough of them say it. I was like, "Oh, they're not getting this." There was something they weren't getting. And I was like, "I know how to fix that," and so I did, I went back. And, of course, after the movie came out, no one had a problem with that. I think my argument was proven to be correct that I had solved the problem by ADR-ing that line.

Ahead of the movie's release, there was lots of talk that this world, this mythology, this franchise, that there's a lot of potential to move forward. You already confirmed you were interested in follow-up stories. Especially now that we're a month out and it has resonated with people, have those talks of a future film gained steam, or are you still basking in the joy of just the fact that people love this?

There's already a lot of conversation, a lot of pressure being put on it. I mean, the movie cost $18 million, and it's going to ultimately make probably $160-170 million worldwide. So they want another one. Of course, they do.

The Black Phone is out now on Digital HD and hits Blu-ray and DVD on August 16th.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.

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