Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in “The Conjuring: Last Rites.”
Warner Bros. Pictures/New Line Cinema
The Conjuring: Last Rites, starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, is new in theaters and is already selling lots of tickets. So with its success, will it really be the last film in The Conjuring movie franchise?
Based on the true-life case files of famed demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, the first movie in the series, The Conjuring, was released in 2013. Wilson and Farmiga then reprised their roles as the Warrens in The Conjuring 2 in 2016 and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It in 2021, as well as Annabelle Comes Home in 2019.
Now, after 12 years of playing the Warrens, The Conjuring: Last Rites is being promoted as the final Conjuring movie. Wilson and Farmiga told the New York Times in a recent interview that their performances in the film bid proper adieu to their characters.
“All the emotion that we had, any fanfare of like, ‘This is it, goodbye, Ed and Lorraine,’ it is in that movie,” Wilson told the Times. “It’s all onscreen.”
But just because it’s the end of the Conjuring movie series, does it mean The Conjuring Cinematic Universe is coming to an end, too?
Judging the box office history of the franchise prior to the release of The Conjuring: Last Rites, it would seem nonsensical to stop The Conjuring Cinematic Universe dead in its tracks.
After all, the nine prior films in the franchise — consisting of three Conjuring films, three Annabelle spinoff films, two spinoffs of The Nun and the singular The Curse of La Llorona (an unofficial entry in The Conjuring Cinematic Universe) — have all been box office hits.
The nine films combined have grossed nearly $2.4 billion at the worldwide box office against $217 million in production budgets before prints and advertising costs, according to The Numbers.
The Conjuring: Last Rites is already poised to continue the franchise’s winning streak. The Hollywood Reporter projects the film will open with $65 million in domestic ticket sales and $50 million internationally against a $55 million production budget before P&A.
‘The Conjuring Cinematic Universe’ Will Continue With ‘Phase Two,’ Studio Head Says
All of the films in The Conjuring Cinematic Universe have been produced by Warner Bros. subsidiary New Line Cinema, which has released the horror hits Weapons and Final Destination Bloodlines.
The outlook for The Conjuring: Last Rites and the franchise that it spawned was was already looking good in the spring, New Line President and Chief Creative Officer Richard Brener told The Hollywood Reporter in April.
“[The Conjuring: Last Rites is] testing through the roof and we’re only at the director’s cut, the 10-week part of the movie where you’re normally very, very scared about the status of your film, Brener told THR. “We’re very early in the process, have very preliminary visual effects, but it’s already through the roof. So, while this is the last of what we call Phase One, we are hopeful that we can make more … Phase Two is TBD.”
Brener wouldn’t be specific about what kind of Conjuring Universe movie would be in Phase Two, only saying, “We have a lot of great stuff in the works.”
Whether Phase Two of The Conjuring Cinematic Universe would include more Annabelle or The Nun movies — or start with a new batch of scary stories connected to Ed and Lorraine Warren — is yet to be determined.
Richard Brener, President & Chief Creative Officer of New Line Cinema, James Wan, Writer/Producer, Carolyn Blackwood, President and Chief Content Officer of New Line Cinema, Peter Safran, Producer, seen at Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema ‘ANNABELLE COMES HOMES’ World Premiere, Los Angeles, CA, USA – 20 June 2019 (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images for Warner Bros.)
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The potential for more films is certainly there. Michael Chaves — the director of The Curse of La Llorona, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Conjuring: Last Rites and The Nun II — teased in a 2023 interview with SFX Magazine (via Games Radar) after the release of the latter film, his hopes for more Nun movies.
“There’s a line in [The Nun II]: ‘Demons are infinite.’ I like the idea that she’s always been here in different forms,” Chaves told SFX. “I think that there’s still more stories of Valak the demon nun to be told.”
Chaves added that since The Nun II is a prequel movie that is set before the first Conjuring movie, there’s plenty of time to tell more tales.
“I wouldn’t want to give anything away, but this is continuing the timeline,” Chaves told SFX. “Anyone who saw the first Conjuring knows that Maurice is possessed and then exorcised by the Warrens, and we know that that happens in the late ’60s in the Conjuring timeline. This is set in the ’50s, so we’re still a ways off from that.”
Perhaps one of the biggest things going for another potential Nun movie is that both The Nun and The Nun II were big hits. The Nun, released in 2018, earned $366 million at the worldwide box office against a $22 million production budget before prints and advertising, while 2023’s The Nun II earned $269.6 million globally against a $38 million budget before P&A.
Ironically, The Nun wasn’t supposed to be a movie at all. In a May interview, The Conjuring Cinematic Universe producers James Wan and Peter Safran told Entertainment Weekly that it was another character in The Conjuring 2 that was being eyed for a spinoff movie, a la Annabelle the demonically possessed doll, that was featured in the first Conjuring movie.
“We thought the Crooked Man was basically going to be the Annabelle for Conjuring 2 … but when the audience saw the movie, they wanted to know more about the nun. That’s what they gravitated towards,” Safran told EW. “So you got to listen to your fans, you got to listen to the audience.”
If Wan has things his way, The Crooked Man will still get a chance to haunt audiences.
“I still have a movie in my head that I would hopefully love to get off the ground one day, but we’ll see,” Wan told EW. “I get fans that reach out to me every now and then, begging us to make a Crooked Man movie. Just as a fan, I would love to do it one day, if I can convince the studio to do so.”
Perhaps Wan will find a way to resurrect his idea for a Crooked Man movie in The Conjuring Cinematic Universe Phase Two.
In the meantime, audiences can see The Conjuring: Last Rites, which is new in theaters.