Coming fresh off the success of The Black Phone director Scott Derrickson, his long-time collaborator screenwriter C. Robert Cargill, and producer Sherryl Clark are on board to produce Room 428 for Screen Gems, Deadline has reported. While the plot details of the movie are kept tightly under wraps, The Wretched directors, brothers Brett and Drew Pierce are tapped to write and direct the supernatural horror.
The project also marks the return to Screen Gems for Derrickson who has collaborated previously on features like The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Deliver Us from Evil with the studio. The trio’s most recent film The Black Phone was directed by Derrickson with a script he co-wrote with Cargill. The movie starring Ethan Hawke and debutant Mason Thames grossed $143 million at the box office on a budget of $16–18 million and currently has a Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes at 83%. Derrickson started working on The Black Phone after he stepped down from Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange sequel. Speaking to Collider about his experience making the 2016 Doctor Strange movie versus something like The Black Phone, he explained,
I made the movie (Doctor Strange) I wanted to make, but it’s different than when you’re talking about a smaller contained horror film because then you really function like an auteur. It’s all on you.
The movie is a supernatural thriller that sees 13-year-old boy named Finney abducted by a masked killer and held in a soundproof basement. He finds a disconnected phone on the wall that starts to ring. On the other side are the voices of the previous victims of the killer who are adamant to get Finney free. The commercial and critical success of the movie seems to motivate the trio to produce another supernatural movie.
The Pierce brothers most recently directed IFC’s sleeper hit horror movie The Wretched starring John-Paul Howard, Piper Curda, Zarah Mahler, and more. The movie follows a teenage boy who is struggling with his parent’s divorce and faces off against a thousand-year-old witch who has possessed the neighbor next door. The movie garnered the number one spot at the box office in the U.S. for six consecutive weekends, becoming the first to hold the spot since the release of James Cameron’s Avatar in 2009. The movie also became the Top 10 Most Watched Films in the U.S after its debut on Netflix. The duo also directed the 2011 zombie movie Deadheads.
No further details about Room 428 are revealed at the moment. Meanwhile, watch out interview with Derrickson below:
