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Black Phone creator Joe Hill was paid $35 for writing the original story, now his character is in Fortnite and multiple movies
Joe Hill is amazed that his Black Phone character the Grabber is in Fortnite, as he was only paid $35 for the original story
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In 2004 writer Joe Hill sold a story to a magazine called The Third Alternative. The story, titled ‘The Black Phone,’ centered around a young boy who is kidnapped by a serial killer known as the Grabber. After selling the story, Hill thought that was the end of the Grabber.
Boy, was he wrong.
In 2021 Blumhouse Productions produced a film adaptation of the story, and it did pretty well. The Grabber went on to become a pop culture icon, appearing in video games and on soda cans. A sequel, Black Phone 2, hits theaters later this month.
Not bad for a short story that was sold over 20 years ago.
“I never could have imagined it,” Joe Hill says during a Blumhouse Productions panel at New York Comic Con. “I wrote the story over 20 years ago, and I got paid like 35 bucks for it. So, I was pretty psyched about the film, because Jason Blum actually pays a little bit better.”
“If you had asked me twentysomething years ago, ‘Did you know the Grabber is in Fortnite?’ The Grabber’s face is on Fanta cans. I guess it probably tastes like a cool citrus sip of serial murder. I knew it was in good hands because Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargil were tackling it, and everything they’ve done has come from the heart, and they care intensely about the characters, and put the characters first in their stories, and I felt safe with them.”
Black Phone 2 hits theaters on October 17, 2025.
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