CinemaCon is fully underway in Las Vegas and on Tuesday Warner Brothers had their panel. Among other notable films in their sizzle reel highlighting upcoming projects was The Nun 2. This is the horror sequel to the 2018 film, and it will continue the highly popular Conjuring universe.
Nothing was revealed about the plot and there is no release date, but the film is in early development. Akela Cooper, who wrote the cult hit Malignant, is expected to be writing the script and this is looking to be the next film in the franchise. While the original film was not that well received by either critics or fans, The Nun was a highly underrated haunted house castle movie. It had great atmospheric scares, the gothic European aesthetic hearkened back to classic Hammer and Universal horror, and the way it tied back to the larger Conjuring world was quite interesting. The demon Valak (aka the nun) was first introduced in The Conjuring 2 and the lore they added to her horrifying character in The Nun made this demon prime for their own subseries.
Despite the poor reception, The Nun was a huge hit at the box office making $365 million worldwide on only a $22 million budget. Some may say that is just the power of The Conjuring, but it is hard to make that kind of money on just name recognition alone. It is definitely going to be interesting to see where this film is set and what time period it is in. The original film was set in 1952 and is the oldest film in the Conjuring universe's timeline. Half the fun of these films is the settings and The Nun 2 can literally go anywhere.
The last film in the series was last year’s mainline entry The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. That film followed Ed and Lorraine Warren in the 1980s investigating the famous court case that use demonic possession as a defense for murder. Since that film’s release last June, this horror universe’s future has been up in the air. Talks of a sequel to The Nun have been happening since that film’s release in 2018 and for a while it looked like it might go the way of The Crooked Man spinoff which has not had any meaningful development in some time.
However, now that a sequel is officially on the way there is a lot to get excited about. The Conjuring godfather James Wan will likely be back as a producer and Bonnie Aarons will most likely be haunting us again as Valak. Also, if Cooper is indeed writing the film, horror fans are in for a devilish treat as Malignant was one of the most refreshing and creative horror films to come out in the last decade.
Until we know more, you can rewatch all 7 of the Conjuring universe of films to your horror-loving heart’s content.