Why ‘The Black Phone’ Is Scott Derrickson’s Most Personal Film — and His Favorite Yet
thewrap.comoriginal story is a brief one. But Derrickson, along with screenwriter C. Robert Cargill, had the idea to fuse Hill’s horror story with Derrickson’s own emotional experience growing up in North Vancouver in 1978 when he was about the age of Penny (Madeleine McGraw), Finney’s flinty 12-year-old sister whose own supernatural gifts may help her locate her brother.Derrickson went so far as to base many of the film’s characters off real life people he knew as a kid.
Further focusing on the children and their tense upbringing with an alcoholic single father also helps ground “The Black Phone” alongside its more horrific and supernatural elements, elevating it beyond the short story. “The whole idea was to take what that time felt like to me, which is very different than [Steven] Spielberg’s Amblin suburban middle school life,” Derrickson said. “I wanted it to feel authentic and real and feel like that time and place, at least the way that it felt to me.”Even though a film like “The Black Phone” is not nearly on the scale of a massive blockbuster like “Doctor Strange,” the process of making the films are not as different as you would imagine.
But Derrickson was glad to have the support of producer Jason Blum, who agreed to shift production so they could work around McGraw’s shooting schedule and gave Derrickson free reign to make the film as personal as it could be. “You never have enough time and you never have enough money. ‘Sinister’ was $3 million. ‘Doctor Strange’ was over $200 million.
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