The Truth About Black Phone 3, Straight From One Of The Franchise's Writers [Exclusive]

In the realm of horror, no franchise is ever truly dead. You either have something like "Child's Play" that somehow endures without ever having its continuity reset for more than 30 years, or you have something like "Halloween" that has so many branching timelines and reboots that it's dizzying at times. Either way, once something is successful, it lives on. As such, it's reasonable to wonder in light of the success that "Black Phone 2" has enjoyed if "Black Phone 3" is in the cards. 

/Film's Jacob Hall recently spoke with screenwriter C. Robert Cargill in honor of "Black Phone 2" hitting theaters and killing it at the box office, and asked about the possibility of a third round of scary shenanigans with Ethan Hawke's The Grabber. While Cargill didn't totally rule it out, he's also made it crystal clear nothing is set in stone, emphasizing that he and director Scott Derrickson aren't in any rush:

"Can I imagine it happening? Yes. I couldn't imagine this one happening at first. I didn't want to make 'Taken 2' and '3.' 'How does the same kid end up in different basements?' I didn't want to make something like that. But every interview I'm doing asks about the third one. People are writing about, 'Oh, there's an inevitable third one.' Right now, there's no ideas. We left everything on the table for this one. We put it out, it's been out for six days now, and we're going to enjoy that.

Ever since a chance meeting in Las Vegas led to the 2012 hit "Sinister," Derrickson and Cargill have been inseparable creative partners. As Cargill tells it, they put it all out there in the second movie and a third installment isn't as inevitable as some may believe.

"Black Phone 2" doesn't end on some big cliffhanger; its story feels complete. Still, it's easy to see how there could be more tales to tell in this universe centered on The Grabber, who has become a dream killer like Freddy Krueger. On that front, Cargill did provide the smallest hint as to where things would go if a third movie did happen:

"Once that all dies down, if somebody's like, 'Oh, you know what would be cool?,' If the rest of us think it's cool, then we'll start exploring it. But right now we've got a couple other projects we're really excited about to jump into. And Scott has said, we waited a couple years for this one and we wanted to make it a high school film. If we make another one, it's likely to be a college film, where one or both of them are college-age, so that's going to be a few years down the road."

"Those are the closest things we have to an inkling of what that film would be. We're not in a rush to make a third film. We're just very happy we made a good second one," Cargill concluded.

Even if Blumhouse desperately wants "Black Phone 3," unless it's something that feels creatively rewarding, it's highly unlikely that Derrickson and/or Cargill would do it. For what it's worth, Blumhouse has been on a rocky streak at the box office with the surefire hits harder to come by. So if this movie continues to perform well, studio head Jason Blum may well become desperate. In which case, all he can do is hope that Derrickson and Cargill come up with an idea they spark to.

"Black Phone 2" is in theaters now.