MOVIE NEWS – Critics are embracing Black Phone 2 for delivering surprises even as a follow-up and for juggling multiple registers: alongside horror-appropriate twists, it serves up adolescent trauma with sure taste while also touching on religious and existential themes.

Audiences aren’t unhappy either. On opening weekend, the film earned a solid $26.5 million in North America, and industry forecasts suggest a success on par with the first installment, making a third film likely. The creators, however, remain cautious in their wording.

“For now, we’re where we were the week after the first film opened,” screenwriter-director Scott Derrickson told Polygon. “Back then, Jeff Shell, president of NBCUniversal, emailed me: there’s going to be a sequel, right? And I was like, I have no idea.”

Derrickson added that when Joe Hill—Stephen King’s son, whose short story inspired Black Phone—came up with a terrific idea for a continuation, he immediately felt like getting to work. A similar situation could apply to a third chapter as well.

“If there isn’t a sound new idea, we won’t force it, because there’s no point in doing the same thing again. I know of only two cases where the second movie topped the first, and then the third movie topped them both: Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead and George A. Romero’s trilogy—Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead. I’m not sure I could pull that off, but we’ll never know if we don’t try.”

(Black Phone 2 – now in Hungarian cinemas!)

Forrás: UIP Dunafilm