Mr. Harrigan's Phone is the latest film from writer/director John Lee Hancock. Based on the story of the same name written by Stephen King, from his collection titled If It Bleeds, the film follows Craig (Jaeden Martell), a high school kid in a small town, who is hired by a reclusive billionaire, Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland) to read aloud to him when his vision starts to go. The pair form a deep, unlikely friendship. When Craig comes into some money, he buys Mr. Harrigan the most coveted gift of the year: the brand-new iPhone. After some hesitance to the new toy, Mr. Harrigan grows attached to the device. So much so, that when he dies, he seems to maintain a ghostly connection with Craig through their iPhones. What follows is a tale of morality and mortality, all while coming of age.
We spoke to writer/director John Lee Hancock about his work on this film. Hancock is best known for directing films like The Founder, Saving Mr. Banks, and The Blind Side, so horror isn't his normal cup of tea. We spoke about why he chose to jump into the spooky genre, how he doesn't quite consider this a horror film ("It's more of a Brothers Grimm cautionary fairy tale.... Nothing jumps out of the closet and eats you.")
We also spoke about the coming of age themes on Mr. Harrigan's Phone, and how they relate to Stand By Me; how loss affects you regardless of age; working with an elder statesman like Donald Sutherland and a young man like Jaeden Martell in the same project; and how both actors adapted to working with "old" technology of a first generation iPhone.
Mr. Harrigan's Phone streams exclusively on Netflix beginning October 5th. The film is produced by Ryan Murphy, Jason Blum and Carla Hacken. Joe Tippett, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Cyrus Arnold, Colin O’Brien and more co-star.
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