When The Conjuring came out in 2013, film universes were still in their infancy. But off the back of Marvel’s burgeoning box office billions, seven years later we’re drowning in them. Dark Universe this, Monster Universe that, sometimes you just want to watch a movie in its own right. Let’s get back to the topic at hand before my cinematic universe rant derails this article for good.
When The Conjuring came out in 2013 (this sounds familiar), producer Jason Blum thought the idea of a Conjuring film universe sounded “preposterous,” to use his word. Here’s the full quote from his interview with Fandom:
“I’ll tell you a funny story about The Conjuring. A month or two after it turned into a huge hit, someone said to me: “We’re going to make a Conjuring universe”. It wasn’t James [Wan] because I wouldn’t have doubted James, [it was] someone else who was involved in it. But I thought that was preposterous and, in fact, that’s what they did. It’s pretty amazing — it goes off into all these things, and I would love to have been involved with it.”
Fast forward to 2020 and it’s the most successful horror franchise of all time (second if you include Godzilla, which Wikipedia does for some reason). That includes two Conjuring movies, three Annabelles, The Nun, and The Curse of La Llorona. Not bad going for a preposterous idea, eh?
Next in line for conjurers is a third film in the main series, titled The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Sounds like a laugh. It’ll make its bow this September 11th. My earlier point still stands.
For now we’ll go our separate ways, or at least until something conjury comes this way. Like, you know, The Conjuring. Leave a comment if you’ve been dabbling in the occult recently, and we’ll make sure to forward your details to the relevant psychiatric services. I’m kidding, it doesn’t have to have been recently. Maybe you used an Ouija board at a children’s birthday party and it gave you the exact time and place your soul is going to be harvested by the undead.
Would you look at that? Time’s up.