After Black Phone 2 won its opening box office weekend, simultaneously ending Blumhouse’s box office slump, it should be no surprise that questions about a third movie in the horror franchise are already being asked. However, franchise director Scott Derrickson has a key condition in determining if Black Phone 3 is going to happen.

In an interview with Variety that took place before Black Phone 2 opened in movie theaters on October 17, Derrickson was asked about what could be in store for the Grabber (played by Ethan Hawke) in a third movie. The key for Derrickson is that he does not want a potential third movie to be a “retread” of what the franchise has already done. He added:

What I can say is that my atтιтude toward a sequel is that there’s really no justification for making a sequel unless you are genuinely attempting to make a movie that’s better than the first move you’re making a sequel to. If you’re going to make a third one, it needs to be better than the second one, which is better than the first one. Very few films do that.

The original The Black Phone, which released in 2022, followed a young teen named Finney (Mason Thames), who is abducted by a serial killer named the Grabber. While being held captive, Finney learns he can hear the voices of the Grabber’s past victims through a disconnected phone. With that and the help of his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), Finney is able to kill the Grabber.

In Black Phone 2, however, Finney and Gwen continue to be tormented by the Grabber, who comes back from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and has a string of new powers that makes him even more frightening. Read ScreenRant’s Black Phone 2 ending explainer for a full explanation of the sequel (spoilers included, of course).

Some indicators may question whether or not Derrickson met his own condition with Black Phone 2 – the sequel is “Certified Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes, but trails The Black Phone in both critics and audience score; meanwhile ScreenRant’s Black Phone 2 review questioned why “this sequel needed to exist.” However, Derrickson clearly thought he had met the condition he has set for himself.

Derrickson admits how hard it is to successfully pull off a trilogy that gets progressively better. In the interview, he says that Sam Raimi’s Evil ᴅᴇᴀᴅ trilogy and George Romero’s Night of the Living ᴅᴇᴀᴅ trilogy and the only two examples in cinema history of trilogies where all three are great movies that get progressively better.

Whether Black Phone 3 will get the chance to join that list remains to be seen. It’s still too early for the full box office picture, but Black Phone 2 did outgross its predecessor in its opening weekend, $42.01 million to $35.89 million worldwide. At this time, though, there is no confirmation that a third movie in the Black Phone franchise will happen.