The 2013 release of The Conjuring, by Warner Bros, was the start of one of the best horror series in history. Since then, a team headed by James Wan has successfully continued to tell fictionalized versions of real life cases of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Respectively played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga the series started off booming in the box office and horror movie history, grossing $319.5 million against a $20 million budget of $20 million. From the achievements of the first film proceeded the franchise of sequels and spin offs. The Conjuring 2, Annabelle, and The Nun, just to name a few, allowed us insight into Wan and his team’s exciting perspective of the journey of Ed and Lorraine. Audiences have loved it ever since, no matter which film they decide to start with, as many of the story lines have very distinct connections. With compelling graphics, dynamic characters and an intentional story line the success of the franchise as been undeniable and of high demand. With all the excitement and familiarity of characters the franchise surprisingly has not received 100% good reviews. Some films reportedly being weaker than others like, The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It, has been rumored to be a possible contributing factor of the surprising update for the heavily anticipated The Conjuring 4.
Ed and Lorraine ( Patrick and Vera)
Recently in an interview with Collider, Director Wan responded to a question about future plans for the franchise with an answer that may not sit well with fans.
“Yeah, we are working on it right now. With the Conjuring films, we are very precious about [them],” Wan said. “And so we kind of want to just take our time to make sure we get it right and to make sure the emotion of the Warren stories that we want to tell, and moving into, and potentially wrapping up, we just want to make sure that it’s the right thing, the right story that we’re telling.” He also quickly ensured the franchise is near and dear to his heart, not to mention the amount of team effort that went into it. Of course, there was a push for confirmation in which he simply answered, “We never know. You never know. We’ll see.”
Definitely not the answer many of us wanted to hear but we have to be grateful for the amazing cinema given to us over this eventful decade. The potentially last installment was announced October 2022. Wan and Peter Safran will be producing the picture and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick as scriptwriter. The future for the franchise is uncertain, however, we do know The Nun 2 is set to be released September 8th, 2023 and at this time the release date for The Conjuring 4 is also still in the works.
