The Conjuring universe has been haunting audiences for more than a decade, spinning Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren’s (Vera Farmiga) real-life paranormal cases into one of horror’s most successful franchises. But with The Conjuring: Last Rites closing out what James Wan calls the first “phase” of the series, the filmmaker admits it was the right moment to step back, even if the door isn’t fully closed on more supernatural stories.
“I just think collectively we’ve been doing this for a while. It’s been nearly 13 years that we’ve been playing in this world,” Wan told Collider’s Perri Nemiroff. “We don’t want to be making the 30th movie down the line and have driven the franchise into the ground. We love the idea of actually just going out on a high, whilst we’re still on top. And there’s something kind of nice about it, to kind of not soil the legacy, if you will.” Calling the ending a “bittersweet farewell,” Wan added that while the future is uncertain, “you never know what could happen down the line.”
Closing One Chapter, But Opening Another?
The end of Phase 1 doesn’t mean the Warrens’ world has been completely exorcised. Wan admits he gets cagey when asked about a potential “Phase 2,” but he doesn’t deny that there’s plenty of material left to explore. “I’m so superstitious, so whenever anyone talks about Phase 2, I’m like, ‘La-da-da-da-da,’” Wan joked. “I guess, you know, just the lore of the real-life Ed and Lorraine Warren [is] so rich, like the characters are so rich, the lore’s so rich, that they still really have a lot of stories left.”
“There are many ways to sort of approach this, but I guess I try not to give it too much thought at this point. I just want to be respectful to where we are right now and focus on saying goodbye to this one,” he continued. Still, fans haven’t stopped clamoring for one particular spin-off centered on a character teased in The Conjuring 2 — the Crooked Man. The nightmarish figure quickly became a fan favorite despite never getting his own film, and according to Wan, the demand hasn’t slowed down. “It’s amazing. It’s like every now and then, I still get fans reaching out to me and saying, ‘When are we going to get the Crooked Man movie?’ It’s pretty incredible.”
For Wan, the character remains a perfect candidate for a standalone project. “The Crooked Man is like a perfect sort of spin-off,” he admitted. “That’s the great thing about these sort of, the spin-off movies, is they can still happen, that is not a part of the mothership itself.” So while The Conjuring: Last Rites may be closing the curtain on one chapter, the supernatural universe Wan helped build still has life left in it. Whether Phase 2 emerges in the form of new Warrens cases or, at long last, the Crooked Man’s spin-off, fans may not have to wait forever to see the next haunting.
The Conjuring: Last Rites haunts theaters on September 5.
via Collider