James Ransone meets with Derrickson & Hawke again for The Black Phone
Scott Derrickson’s adaptation of Joe Hill’s The black phone continues to develop into a full-on Creepy Goodbye as James Ransone (IT: Chapter two) has pledged to star in the Blumhouse-produced film alongside Ethan Hawke, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
RELATED: Ethan Hawke Reunites with Derrickson & Blumhouse for The Black Phone
Based on the 2004 novella of the same name by Joe Hill, who will also produce the film as executive producer, the logline for the source material is as follows:
Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every movie that has ever been made. She’s dead too, waiting for Alec Sheldon at the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945. Arthur Roth is a lonely child with great ideas and a gift to attract abuse. Making friends isn’t easy when you’re the only inflatable boy in town. Francis is unhappy. Francis was once human, but that was it. Now he’s an eight foot grasshopper, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. John Finney is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. With him in the basement there is an antique telephone that has long been disconnected, but rings at night when the dead call.
Click here to purchase Hill’s novella and the first Derrickson, Hawke, and Ransone collaboration Creepy!
Hawke will appear as kidnapper of the children in the film, while Mason Thames will star Jeremy Davies (Justified) as the boy’s father and Madeleine McGraw as the sister and Ransone’s role, which is currently under lock and key, aside from the name Max.
Not only is Derrickson leading the project, but also adapting the story with frequent contributor C. Robert Cargill, who will both get back together with Blumhouse after their fan-favorite horror film from 2012 Creepy with Ethan Hawke, who the two wrote together, and Derrickson as director. The movie’s box office hit spawned a sequel the two wrote together, but turned directing duties over to Ciaran Foy, though box office returns were lower and planned by critics and audiences alike.
RELATED: Chris Evans and Scott Derrickson team up for Bermuda
Derrickson and Cargill will co-produce the project through their Crooked Highway Productions banner with Jason Blum for his eponymous production banner, while Universal and Blumhouse will distribute it. Black phone has also already started building his cast as Mason Thames (For all of humanity) and Madeleine McGraw (Toy Story 4) both signed up to star in the film.
