James Wan in handing over the keys to his haunted house. After helming the first two installments in New Line's hit horror franchise The Conjuring, the Aquaman director is stepping aside as director of the franchise and handing the gig over to The Curse of La Llorona filmmaker Michael Chaves.
Chaves will direct The Conjuring 3 and Wan will remain on board as a producer via his Atomic Monster banner. Peter Safran is also returning as producer via his Safran Company. Wan discovered Chaves from his award-winning horror short The Maiden and produced his directorial debut La Llorona, which arrives in theaters next year. And clearly Wan was impressed with what he saw if he's handing his big-bucks franchise to the up-and-coming filmmaker.
“While working closely with Chaves on The Curse of La Llorona, I got to know him as a filmmaker,” said Wan (via THR). “Chaves’ ability to bring emotion to a story, and his understanding of mood and scares make him a perfect fit to direct the next Conjuring film.” He added, "I'm excited to be back as producer and continue with Vera [Farmiga] and Patrick [Wilson] on the next supernatural adventure of the Warrens."
“I am a huge fan of the Conjuring films,” said Chaves. “The movies are the rare combination that deliver both tremendous heart and awesome scares. It is both a total thrill and absolute honor to be working with James and the gang at New Line again.”
The Conjuring 3 is also getting a bit of a shakeup in the scripting department and will be the first without a script by Chad and Carey Hayes. David Leslie Johnson, who on The Conjuring 2 and Wan's Aquaman, is writing the script for the next supernatural adventure of Ed and Lorraine Warren.
This isn't the first time Wan has payed it forward to a young filmmaker -- he also discovered David F. Sandberg via his horror short Lights Out and went on to produce Sandberg's feature length adaptation of the same name, before bringing Sandberg into the Conjuring-verse with the spinoff sequel Annabelle: Creation. Sandberg followed in his mentor's footsteps and rode his horror success to the realm of superheroes with New Line's upcoming Shazam!
The Conjuring franchise continues to flourish at the box office, and the latest spinoff film -- Corin Hardy's The Nun -- was the highest-grossing film in the franchise to date. In addition to The Conjuring 3, New Line also has a third Annabelle film in the works with in-house favorite screenwriter Gary Dauberman set to make his directorial debut. The studio is also reportedly working on a Crooked Man spinoff, inspired by the lanky demonic force introduced in The Conjuring 2, though it's been some time since there was an update on that front.
If you're a Witching Hour listener, you'll know I'm pretty sad about this news. Wan has originated three smash horror franchises, and while he returned for sequels on Insidious and The Conjuring (he never returned to Saw for any of the seven sequels), I was really hoping to see the modern horror maestro round out a trilogy of his own. That said, i'll always be excited to spend more time with the Warrens, even if they're in the hands of another filmmaker.
What do you guys think? Did you catch the Curse of La Lorona footage at Comic-Con? Are you a fan of Chaves' short? Were you hoping to see a full-on Wan trilogy? Sound off in the comments with your thoughts.
